Good morning—

 

Several of you have reached out to us to ask whether the COVID economic impact payments and unemployment benefits will be counted as income when considering a person’s eligibility for the Part D Low-Income Subsidy/Extra Help.

 

Some of you may have seen recent news about these payments as they pertain to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility: https://www.ssa.gov/coronavirus/categories/monthly-benefits-and-other-financial-help/#home-058.

 

The Social Security Policy Manual entry for Extra Help (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0603020001) says that the program follows SSI income rules.

 

The POMS for both LIS & SSI have not been updated with the coronavirus income guidance, but our contact at Social Security assured us:

 

LIS income rules follow SSI rules. Therefore, LIS policy for COVID-19 related financial assistance payments is the same as the SSI policy. I understand that we are working to publish a separate LIS COVID-19 policy that mirrors the SSI COVID-19 policy. 

 

The August 4th changes were incorporated into the SSI Emergency Messages (EM) EM-20014 REV 3 (Effect of COVID-19-Related Financial Assistance on SSI Income and Resources), and EM-21050 (Special Processing Instructions for Applying Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Income and Resource Exclusions to Pandemic-related Disaster Assistance), which are being currently used. These EMs are public and viewable on SSA.gov. 

 

Therefore, the COVID-19 economic impact payments listed on https://www.ssa.gov/coronavirus/categories/monthly-benefits-and-other-financial-help/#home-058 will NOT count as income for Extra Help.

 

 

Brandy Bauer (she, her, hers)

Associate Director, Center for Benefits Access
571-527-3911
ncoa.org | @NCOAging

 

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