I’m all for fighting for marriage equality in the LGBT community. But we’re so focused on that no one knows about this problem.
W…wait Thats a thing????
Yep! The man I refer to as my husband? We aren’t actually married. We can’t be.
If I married him, the government would literally expect me to care for him and be his sole source of income. He would lose all of his benefits, including SSDI. Spouses are expected to share income and that effects ALL of his benefits, even his health insurance. We simply can’t afford to be married.
But it goes even further than that. If I were disabled, our incomes would STILL be combined, meaning BOTH of us would have our benefits cut.
For people reviving supplemental income, their benefits can be cut anywhere from 25% of their current income all the way down to 0%
In fact, one of the stipulations of receiving income under the adult disabled child program (which provides benefits for people who were disabled before age 22) is that they LITERALLY never be married.
I normally don’t link to blog posts as resources, but since social service resource sites like to dress this problem up and make it seem smaller than it really is, I’m gonna call it appropriate! Check it out!
