Defying logic and a common-sense understanding of household finances, a law has existed for decades that strips disability benefits from individuals with disabilities who choose to get married. Under the current law, individuals receiving benefits who get married can experience a partial or total loss of all benefits, including losing all Medicaid health benefits.
As it stands, the current law functions as a marriage penalty for those receiving benefits, forcing individuals with disabilities to choose between life-saving health care or their ability to make life choices. The effect is that many people with disabilities choose not to get married, which often also means they do not start families. Those who decide to get married forego the fraction of financial freedom they had as a single person, making themselves entirely financially dependent on their spouse, a situation that can lead to low feelings of self-worth or leave them vulnerable to control and manipulation.
An even more alarming feature of the current law is that couples who are not married but appear to be cohabitating and sharing expenses can also be stripped of their benefits, making it impossible for people with disabilities who rely on benefits to enjoy even partial control over a fundamental aspect of their life that everyone else takes for granted.
The current law and joint income
The Social Security Administration determines eligibility for disability benefits by assessing income and assets, so when an individual gets married, the joint income and assets for both parties are considered. Under the current law, the threshold for disqualification is relatively low, meaning by combining assets with another party, even if those assets are still very modest, an individual will likely lose disability eligibility.
Policies like this reflect anachronistic mentalities that assume that when a person with a disability marries a non-disabled partner, the partner will take total financial and medical care for the disabled spouse, eliminating a need for any additional support. This view is naïve to current economic trends, modern domestic expenses, and the growing cost of healthcare, all of which make living on one income unfeasible for most American couples under the best of circumstances, let alone when one party will require frequent and extensive healthcare attention.
The healthcare issue is compounded when one considers that many disability assistance programs like community-based services, home-care aides, and long-term care facilities only accept Medicaid recipients. Since the only way to qualify for Medicaid is to fall below a certain income threshold, even if the spouse of a person with a disability can afford private health insurance, the couple might still be locked out of many health services that the spouse has with disability needs.
When both spouses have disabilities, they still receive even smaller benefit amounts after marriage. Couples with disabilities can expect to receive about 25% less after marriage because the current law assumes that a married couple can live on a smaller income than two separate individuals. Depending on the housing and rental market specific to location, this may be true in some cases, but reducing benefits upon marriage discourages couples from starting families.
Some might assert that the intentions behind the current law are explicitly to deter marriage and thus procreation, tracing the language of the current law back to the eugenics and institutionalization movements that became popular in the early 20th century.
Hope in new legislation
Lawmakers in both houses have introduced legislation that would do away with the marriage penalty and bring disability benefits policies into the 21st century.
On January 13th, 2022, California Congressman Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) introduced the Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act to eliminate the requirement that disabled adult children (DAC) remain unmarried to receive lifetime benefits. Panetta became aware of the struggles people with disabilities were facing under the current law after Lori Long, a constituent in his district, reached out to share her story. According to Ms. Long:
“I was overjoyed when my fiancé Mark proposed to me back in 2016. We were both devastated when we learned I’d lose disability benefits, Medicare, and Medicaid if we got married. Everyone deserves the freedom to marry the person they choose without jeopardizing the support, services, and safeguards disabled people need to live full lives within their communities. The bill, when it becomes law, will help disabled people across the nation finally attain marriage equality.”
A parallel bill is making its way through the Senate introduced by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. If some version of the bill passes both houses, people with disabilities will be one step closer to attaining full marriage rights that they never should have been denied in the first place.
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