TIL in 1989, the US government set $2,000 as the limit for how much money someone with a disability can keep in savings and remain eligible for federal benefits
It’s been decades since the government set how much money someone with a disability can keep in savings and still be eligible for Supplemental Security Income benefits.
The Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) was created in 1972 under the Nixon administration to provide financial support to low-income seniors and disabled people. An effort to federalize state-level adult support programs across the country, SSI is a means-tested program—there are financial requirements to be eligible. In the case of SSI, as of its last adjustment in 1989, enrollees cannot have savings of more than $2,000 as an individual or $3,000 as a family. Furthermore, SSI beneficiaries are prohibited from having retirement accounts, life insurance policies, certain types of personal property, funeral/burial policies, and access to other types of income.
They limit the amount of property you can own here was like... 5k in 2019, which is not thoroughly explained whether that means the current price of things, or what it would get on the second hand market etc etc. You certainly couldn't have a house or apartment until covid when suddenly a bunch of conservative voters were jobless.
(mine was for Australia, and I only remember dimly because I just logged my items as what I think I could reasonably get on the market, and computers depreciate very rapidly, no one seemed to question it)