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Lawyer here, but not legal advice: Look into a Special Needs Trust. You may be able to sock the money into the Trust without it becoming income to you, and thu

Lawyer here, but not legal advice: Look into a Special Needs Trust. You may be able to sock the money into the Trust without it becoming income to you, and thus jeopardizing your benefits. It’s usually used to keep assets low enough for benefits, but maybe there’s an income reducing benefit as well. Your state likely has multiple providers —- fees, if any, are typically quite reasonable

dingusdew 4y ago
One way to legally get the end-run around SSDI is to work on open source projects and accept donations. SSDI allows income from sources other than work, unlike SSI, which bars pretty much all income. SSDI allows you to get things like Financial Aid for school without impacting your SSDI. You can even trade stocks and gain money from stock sales and not have it impact your SSDI. Your spouse can have income and it won't impact SSDI. Most forms of income that are not strictly "work" are allowed by SSDI. SSI is the more strict of the two programs (and is more generally aimed at people who have been lifetime disabled and never worked or paid into social security). Open source development + accepting donations seems like a sweet spot for the disabled on SSDI. You're not accepting pay for the "work" you do, thus the donation income is legally acceptable. OP doesn't specify whether they are on SSI or SSDI, but if they had worked for years before they were disabled, its likely they were able to get SSDI.
- ska 4y ago
  Do you know many people who are doing this with > 1000 per month average donations?
PaulHoule 4y ago
It bugs me that almost all the people I know that have gotten on disability have come from upper-class families, frequently the parents are part of the "business class" and work with lawyers on a regular basis. Conversely I've known many people who come from lower class or middle class families that have hit hard times who are seriously mental ill (e.g. addicted to cigarettes but so thought disordered that it takes three hours to smoke a cig after waking up.) It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal.
- foxyv 4y ago
  > It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal. This has been an inherent flaw in our legal system since the inception of our country. We do not have a right to equal representation. The right to have representation at all is barely even a thing. There has even been some mumbling about ending the right to an attorney...
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    We do not have a right to equal representation. I'm not sure that's the case here. It's a matter of knowledge transfer. Lawyers know things. People with money can afford to get knowledge from lawyers. People without money cannot afford to get knowledge from lawyers. It's not a problem with the "system" that mathematicians know more about math than the general public, and that people who have the money can hire a mathematician to do math for them. It's a knowledge transfer problem. How do you solve that? You can't give every person a massive book of every law when they're born. It's impractical to store, and they'd be outdated the next day. All of the laws are online for anyone to read, but who has the time?
    - foxyv 4y ago
      A huge problem with the system is that the laws are not understandable without significant study. Law school is ridiculously expensive. The average cost of a law degree right now is about $200,000. This makes legal representation insanely expensive. A step towards equal representation would start by heavily subsidizing law school making them accessible to everyone. Also, we would need to fund the creation of more law schools. In addition we should fund public defenders an order of magnitude more than we currently do. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-law-school#:~:text=The%20price%20of%20law%20school,%2468%2C210%2C%20or%20%2422%2C740%20per%20year https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-law-school#:~:text....
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
If they acquired this disability before the age of 26 (soon to be 46?) they're also eligible to create an able account, which would have a much lower cost than a special needs trust.
- Madmallard 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on this?
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Yeah, an able account is basically a 529 for people with disabilities. https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/ https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/ As of right now it's only for people who acquired their disability before 26. I was born with cerebral palsy so that's how I qualified.
raincom 4y ago
Len Tillem in old days on KGO 810 used to give such advices. Follow this method.

dingusdew 4y ago

One way to legally get the end-run around SSDI is to work on open source projects and accept donations. SSDI allows income from sources other than work, unlike SSI, which bars pretty much all income. SSDI allows you to get things like Financial Aid for school without impacting your SSDI. You can even trade stocks and gain money from stock sales and not have it impact your SSDI. Your spouse can have income and it won't impact SSDI. Most forms of income that are not strictly "work" are allowed by SSDI. SSI is the more strict of the two programs (and is more generally aimed at people who have been lifetime disabled and never worked or paid into social security). Open source development + accepting donations seems like a sweet spot for the disabled on SSDI. You're not accepting pay for the "work" you do, thus the donation income is legally acceptable. OP doesn't specify whether they are on SSI or SSDI, but if they had worked for years before they were disabled, its likely they were able to get SSDI.

ska 4y ago
Do you know many people who are doing this with > 1000 per month average donations?

PaulHoule 4y ago

It bugs me that almost all the people I know that have gotten on disability have come from upper-class families, frequently the parents are part of the "business class" and work with lawyers on a regular basis. Conversely I've known many people who come from lower class or middle class families that have hit hard times who are seriously mental ill (e.g. addicted to cigarettes but so thought disordered that it takes three hours to smoke a cig after waking up.) It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal.

foxyv 4y ago
> It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal. This has been an inherent flaw in our legal system since the inception of our country. We do not have a right to equal representation. The right to have representation at all is barely even a thing. There has even been some mumbling about ending the right to an attorney...
- reaperducer 4y ago
  We do not have a right to equal representation. I'm not sure that's the case here. It's a matter of knowledge transfer. Lawyers know things. People with money can afford to get knowledge from lawyers. People without money cannot afford to get knowledge from lawyers. It's not a problem with the "system" that mathematicians know more about math than the general public, and that people who have the money can hire a mathematician to do math for them. It's a knowledge transfer problem. How do you solve that? You can't give every person a massive book of every law when they're born. It's impractical to store, and they'd be outdated the next day. All of the laws are online for anyone to read, but who has the time?
  - foxyv 4y ago
    A huge problem with the system is that the laws are not understandable without significant study. Law school is ridiculously expensive. The average cost of a law degree right now is about $200,000. This makes legal representation insanely expensive. A step towards equal representation would start by heavily subsidizing law school making them accessible to everyone. Also, we would need to fund the creation of more law schools. In addition we should fund public defenders an order of magnitude more than we currently do. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-law-school#:~:text=The%20price%20of%20law%20school,%2468%2C210%2C%20or%20%2422%2C740%20per%20year https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-law-school#:~:text....
    - ROTMetro 4y ago

wing-_-nuts 4y ago

If they acquired this disability before the age of 26 (soon to be 46?) they're also eligible to create an able account, which would have a much lower cost than a special needs trust.

Madmallard 4y ago
Can you elaborate on this?
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  Yeah, an able account is basically a 529 for people with disabilities. https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/ https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/ As of right now it's only for people who acquired their disability before 26. I was born with cerebral palsy so that's how I qualified.

raincom 4y ago

Len Tillem in old days on KGO 810 used to give such advices. Follow this method.