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Child Support and Alimony Payments - What you Need to Know

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We are often asked about what happens to SSI benefits when there may be child support or alimony involved with a Special Needs Trust. We hope you find this blog post helpful and a good resource to reference when you are advising your clients. When a child is receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and the custodial parent is receiving child support (including arrearage payments) from a non-custodial parent, Social Security counts the support as unearned income to the child. ( SI 00830.420(B)(1)). Similarly, when an SSI recipient receives alimony or spousal support, Social Security counts the support as unearned income to the SSI recipient. ( SI 00830.418B ). Each dollar of unearned income (after a general disregard of $20) will reduce the recipient’s monthly SSI amount by a dollar. If the monthly child support, alimony or spousal support is great enough, it could completely eliminate the recipient’s monthly SSI check. SSI recipients and their attorneys shoul