WHAT BACK TO SCHOOL MEANS FOR FAMILIES WITH DISABILITIES
August is Back to School Month for families with school age children. The National Retail Federation (NRF) notes that consumers were cutting back on non-essential items or shopping sales in order to afford back to school supplies with the current inflation rate. For families with disabilities, subsisting on Social Security benefits, this can be especially daunting. NRF calculates the average cost per family to be $864 this year, mostly owing to inflation.
The Social Security Administration provides income for children through two programs. SSA pays benefits for minor children of disabled adults who paid into the Title II program through pay roll taxes. Second, SSA provides direct benefits to disabled children of low income families through its Supplemental Security Income program. These benefits provide for approximately 4 million children in this country.
For families with a disabled child, the family must be low income to be considered eligible. Review this chart to see if your family meets the threshold requirements. The SSI Program provides critical support for 1.2 million children in this country. Fifteen percent of all SSI recipients are children. Because eligibility for SSI depends on meeting both medical and financial criteria, the rate of SSI receipt varies geographically depending on local health, economic and demographic factors. In 2020, Georgia had 42,750 children receiving SSI.