The thing that got Karen Williams into trouble was that she tried to do the responsible thing and bought a life insurance policy that would pay for her funeral.
The Philadelphia woman had seen family members scramble to find money — begging friends or starting GoFundMe campaigns — to pay the high cost of burying a loved one. Williams didn’t want to burden her children.
She had no idea that buying that insurance would get her caught up in an antiquated federal rule — an “asset limit” — that snares more than 100,000 of America’s poorest disabled and elderly every year, often with dire consequences.
Williams, who is disabled and doesn’t work, relied upon a little-known federal assistance program — Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, run by the Social Security Administration. It sends monthly benefit checks — the average amount is $698 — to 7.4 million of the nation’s neediest disabled and elderly people to help them pay for rent, food, medicine and other everyday needs.
The program, started 51 years ago but updated little since then, is hampered by out-of-date rules, such as the limit on assets.
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