According to the Social Security website:
Earned Income: are wages, net earnings from self–employment, certain royalties and honoraria, and sheltered workshop payments.
Unearned Income: is all income that is not earned, such as Social Security benefits, pensions, state disability payments, unemployment benefits, interest income, and cash from friends and relatives.
In–Kind Income: is food or shelter that you get for free or less than its fair market value.
Deemed Income: is the part of the income of your spouse with whom you live, your parent(s) with whom you live, or your sponsor (if you are an alien), which we use to compute your SSI benefit amount.
What Income Categories Does Social Security Not Include?
The following is a list of income that Social Security does not include within SSI and DIB claims:
Income tax refunds; home energy assistance; assistance based on need funded by a state or local government, or an Indian tribe; grants, scholarships, fellowships or gifts used for tuition and educational expenses; loans to you (cash or in–kind) that you have to repay; money someone else spends to pay your expenses for items other than food or shelter (for example, someone pays your telephone or medical bills); disaster assistance; and many more.
How Does Earned Income Affect SSI Benefits?
1) Social Security subtracts any income that they do not count from the total gross income for the claimant. The remaining dollar amount is “countable income”.
2) Social Security then subtracts the “countable income” from the SSI Federal benefit rate. The result is the total monthly SSI Federal benefit.
What is Deemed Income?
When a person who is eligible for SSI benefits and lives with a spouse who is not eligible for SSI benefits, Social Security may count some of the spouse’s income in determining the total SSI benefit.
Please visit www.socialsecurity.gov to find out more information regarding income that is included and not included through Social Security.
