How to Calculate Supplemental Security Income
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a government-funded program that is intended to help people who are blind, permanently disabled or elderly. This program provides supplemental income to those with little or no income. You can perform a calculation in order to estimate the amount you will receive in SSI payments.
- Determine the amount of your financial resources. SSI places a limit of $2,000 for individuals and $3,000 for couples. This amount includes the money that you have in any bank or brokerage accounts, but does not include your house, life insurance or any funeral expenses that you may be saving for.
- Combine the amount of money that is paid to you each month in the form of interest or stock dividends. This is your monthly unearned income. Deduct $20 from this amount to calculate your countable unearned income amount. If you have less than $20 in unearned income, then your countable unearned income is $0. You can carry over any part of the $20 when calculating your income in step 4. For example, if you have $5 in unearned income, then deduct $20, you will have -$15. You are then allowed to deduct an additional $15 from step 4.
- Add up all of your monthly earned income to come up with a total combined monthly earned income amount.
- Deduct $65 from your monthly earned income. Be sure to also deduct any additional unearned income from step 2. In our example, you would deduct $65 plus an additional $15, for total deduction of $80.
- Divide the remaining amount by 2. This is your countable earned income.
- Combine the amounts from step 5 and step 2 to calculate your total countable income.
- Obtain a copy of the federal benefit rate table and determine your benefit rate. You rate is determined by a number of factors. Subtract your total countable income in step 6 from your benefit rate on the chart to determine the amount of your SSI payments.