Can I receive Supplemental Security Income if I move in with my children?

Andy Markowitz,

Updated December 31, 2025

AARP

En español

Published December 29, 2021

/ Updated December 31, 2025

You can get Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if you live with an adult son or daughter, or with siblings, cousins or unrelated roommates, for that matter. Such an arrangement can reduce your monthly benefit, however, depending on how much you contribute to certain household costs.

Here’s why: If someone else is partially or fully covering these expenses for you, the Social Security Administration (SSA), which oversees the SSI program, may consider that in-kind income — and income is a factor in calculating benefits.

Each year, Social Security sets a maximum federal benefit for SSI, which provides safety-net payments for people who are 65 and older, blind or have a disability and are in financial need. For 2026, the maximum monthly payment, known as the federal benefit rate, is $1,491 for a married couple if both spouses get SSI and $994 for an individual.

Those figures are starting points. The SSA can reduce and possibly eliminate the monthly payment based on how much you earn from work or receive in cash or direct support from other sources, such as investments, government programs, or relatives and friends.

Shelter costs can affect SSI

Social Security does not factor in all your income in calculating this benefit deduction. For example, the first $20 of most income you receive each month from any source is exempt. So is the first $65 of work earnings each month, and half of any earnings over $65.

The SSA also caps how much your SSI payment can be cut if someone provides you with the agency calls “in-kind support” — formerly defined as help paying for food and shelter but now limited to shelter costs. If you are receiving such support, your SSI payment could be reduced by up to one-third of the federal benefit rate plus $20. In 2026, that’s about $351 for an individual and $517 for a couple.

For the purposes of this calculation, shelter costs include:

A mortgage, including property insurance required by the mortgage holder
Real property taxes, less any tax rebate or credit
Rent
Trash pickup
Utilities (that is, heating, gas, electricity, water and sewer)

Other household expenses, such as cable bills, phone bills and internet service, do not count. Nor do groceries; under an SSA rule that took effect Sept. 30, 2024, help paying for food is no longer considered in-kind income and does not affect SSI eligibility or benefit amounts.

It’s important to note that the in-kind support provisions do not apply if the person paying your shelter expenses is a spouse you live with. The same goes for a child beneficiary living with one or both parents. In these situations, the spouse’s or parent’s income could affect benefits via the SSA’s “deeming” rules, but living expenses are not a factor.

How Social Security monitors expenses

The SSA collects details on your living arrangements when you apply for SSI and during redeterminations — periodic reviews to check continuing eligibility — and uses that information to establish whether you’re getting in-kind support and how much. Generally, the SSA uses a 12-month average of shelter costs to determine whether your benefit will be affected and by how much.

You are required to notify the agency within 10 days of a shift in living circumstances that could affect your benefit, such as a move, a change in the composition of the household or a change in your contribution for shelter. The SSA will factor the new information into determining in-kind support and recalculate your benefit accordingly, typically effective the month of the reported change or the month after.

Keep in mind

If you live in your own home — one you own or have rental liability for — shelter expenses can still affect your benefit if someone else (other than a spouse or minor child who also lives there) covers them.
The SSA may apply deductions for other income besides in-kind support (from work, for example). Collectively, these reductions can zero out your SSI benefit. If that happens for 12 consecutive months, you may have to file a new application to re-establish your SSI eligibility.

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Andy Markowitz is an AARP senior writer and editor covering Social Security and retirement. He is a former editor of the Prague Post and Baltimore City Paper.

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