[blindkid] SSI question

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi all,
According to the story, Ronza's mother did everything she was supposed
to including informing SSA when her daughter started working. SSA was
at fault for continuing to send payments after Ronza started working,
then suddenly realizing they had screwed up and demanding all the
money back at once. I have heard these kinds of stories multiple
times, where people receive benefits, follow all the reporting rules
and then are suddenly informed that they were overpaid. This is
unacceptable. Could you imagine if your employer of 20 years suddenly
sent you a letter saying they had miscalculated your salary, they had
paid you an extra $100 per month for the last 20 years and they wanted
all that money back immediately? It would be an outrage.
If you read Ronza's article through, she does talk about the benefits
of SSI and gives several concrete examples. I actually found her
article quite balanced. The message I took away is that SSI is neither
good nor bad, but it's something that should be approached in a
mindful way both by parents and by blind adults. In other words, there
is nothing wrong with getting SSI, but it's important to be mindful of
why you are receiving it and how that money is being spent, and it
should be directed toward disability-related expenses. I thought Julie
did a good job of articulating her reasons and particularly explaining
that due to her disability, her daughter required more one-on-one
parenting time and SSI essentially paid for this extra one-on-one
time. For those of you who were bothered by the article, I would
challenge you to really think deeply about why you have made the
choice to get SSI for your child. If you believe your reasons are
sound, and that you are doing it to defray disability-related expenses
and not simply as an entitlement, then I don't think you have anything
to worry about as far as morality is concerned. If after reflecting,
you come to realize that the SSI isn't really necessary or isn't being
gotten in the spirit of positive expectations or beliefs about
blindness, then perhaps this is a challenge to reconsider your
decision. I suspect that most of not all of you here are utilizing SSI
appropriately.
I think the other take-away point is that when blind kids turn 18,
they really do need to be put in charge of their SSI, preferably
through a formal request to transfer the payee role to them.

Best,
Arielle

On 6/25/13, Lynda Zwinger <lyndaz918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree.  The admonitory and disapproving tone, in my opinion, is
> unwarranted.
>
> The person who had to pay an overpayment:  this is not an intrinsic feature
> of SSI.  This is a combination of an individual not understanding all the
> rules and a government which all too often uses stringent enforcement on
> the have-nots. Why?  Who knows?  Because it can, I imagine.
>
> The *FR* article with its series of examples may well have served a
> hortatory purpose--we all want as much independence as possible--but it was
> a moralistic lecture rather than an analysis of what use our kids can make
> of SSI to help them reach that goal.
>
> I think the original OP wanted to know about the practicalities and
> coverage, not about whether SSI payments were bad for people's character.
>
> Lynda
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Julie Yanez <jyanez112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think there were some pretty negative implications on parents receiving
>> SSI as the payee of a child.
>>
> _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://host.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> blindkid:
> http://host.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/arielle71%40gmail.com
>