SSA News Flash
/On March 13, 2020, the Social Security Administration (SSA) clarified that food is considered a “qualified disability expense” from an ABLE account.
“For ABLE purposes, food is considered a qualified disability expense (basic living expense).”
Although the policy above permits the deposit of monthly SSA payments into the ABLE account, the ABLE National Resource Center, as a promising practice, recommends that beneficiaries use their monthly benefit payments, and in particular their SSI, to pay for some or all of their housing and food costs before depositing any excess into the ABLE account. This is recommended for two reasons:
Benefit payments deposited may not be immediately available due to “hold times” which differ from ABLE program to ABLE program;
When monthly benefit payments are directly deposited into the ABLE account, this money is counted towards the annual contribution limit, thereby decreasing the amount available for additional contributions, even though the ABLE balance may be zero since the funds were used to cover regular monthly expenses.
https://www.ablenrc.org/march-april-2020-achievable-newsletter/#ssa-news-flash
