> Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today for our webinar on yes you can. Savings tips for people with disabilities. My name is Michael Roush and I am the director of the real and connect economic impact at the national disability Institute . Before we get started with a webinar presentation today we have a few housekeeping tips we would like to go over. I would like to introduce and turn over to my colleague Nakia Matthews.
Thank you Michael. Good afternoon everyone. The audio for today's webinar is being broadcast through your computer. Please make sure you speak that speakers turned on our your headphones are turned on. You can see the audio broadcast channel here. You can reopen the audio broadcast panel by going to the communicate menu at the top of your screen and choosing audio broadcast. > If you do not have sound capabilities on your computer or you prefer to listen to the webinar by phone to you can dial the toll-free number you see here. And enter the meeting code . please note you do not need to enter a attendee ID. > We do have real-time captioning provided for this webinar. Those captions can be found in the media panel and the lower right-hand panel of the webinar platform. If you do not see the panel you may need to open by selecting media viewer in the right-hand corner. If you would like to make the panel larger you can do so by minimizing some of the other panels like chat or Q&A. And conversely if you do not need the panel you can collapse or minimize that. I will also paste the link for the captions if you prefer to view the captions in an external browser.
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With that I will turn it over to Michael.
Thank you Nakia. Thank you for joining us today for the webinar. For those of you who are new to the national disability Institute I would like to share some information on our organization. The national disability Institute is a national nonprofit organization that is dedicated to building a better economic future for Americans with disabilities. We are the first national organization committed exclusively to championing economic empowerment, asset development and financial stability for all persons across the full spectrum of disabilities. The national disability Institute affects change through public education, training, technical assistance and policy development, to help the one in three Americans with disabilities living in poverty take steps towards a brighter financial future. To learn more about the national disability Institute, go to [indiscernible]. > We hope if you are not already a member or a partnering organization of the real economic impact network, that you will join us for this national movement. Building a better economic future for persons with disabilities. The real economic impact network is an alliance of organizations and individuals dedicated to advancing economic empowerment of people with disabilities. The network consist of more than 4500 members come throughout the United States and includes
a group of diverse partners that represent nonprofit organizations, community tax coalitions asset development organizations, financial education initiatives for corporations and private sector businesses, federal, state and local governments and federal agencies and individuals and their families with disabilities. All partners of the network joins to embrace, promote and pursue access to and the inclusion, of people with disabilities in the economic mainstream . To learn more about the real economic network go to our website at economic impact .org. It is free to join.
Please check that out. > For today were going to look at savings tips for people with disabilities. Often times individuals with disabilities may not be familiar with the savings options available to them, or they may be afraid to save money in fear of jeopardizing some public benefit. However individuals with disabilities can potentially access a wide variety of savings strategies to achieve their savings goals and improve their financial well-being . We know that when we have additional financial resources it has a positive impact on our physical and mental health that it creates new opportunities to participate in the community, and it also creates new expect Haitians within the community of diverse partners. We are excited to partner with America Saves to leverage both our resources to expand opportunities for individuals across the spectrum with disabilities to increase their awareness of savings and to increase positive savings behaviors for persons with disabilities. For today's webinar we will provide an overview of savings options for individuals with disabilities. We will look at three potential options that individuals may be able to access if they qualify. The first one we will look at is
able accounts, and individual accounts allowing an individual to save towards an asset. We will also look at the plan to achieve self-support which is a Social Security incentive that allows an individual to save money to be able to support an employment goal they have. Next we will look at America saves . America Saves has a wide variety of resources and tools that individuals can access to help them create a positive financial, positive savings behavior. They were share with us various savings resources and tools and they will also talk to us about the upcoming America saves week. Which is our call to action to each of you, if you're not involved with America saves week, but hopefully after today's webinar that you two will participate in America Saves week so we can truly make an impact for disability organizations participating in America Saves week , to make a real economic impact for persons with disabilities, that they can save and create a positive savings behavior, as we access the various tools.
So to get us started, looking at the various savings options for individuals with disabilities, that they potentially can access I'm excited to be joined by my colleague , Chris Rodriguez, a senior policy advisor at the national disability Institute. With that Chris I will turn it over to you. > Thank you Michael I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss these important and very impactful different avenues or tools that individuals with disabilities can take advantage of, in order to try and supersede some of the more prohibitive policies around increasing economic mobility and financial self-sufficiency . I really appreciate the opportunity to talk today. Let's go ahead and get started. What we wanted to talk about first we will talk about the ABLE at . Act, giving a brief example of the characteristics of these three different tools to allow you to get a basic understanding of some of the characteristics, how it might be able to help an individual with disabilities pay for their future. What they can say for and who is eligible.
I will start with the ABLE act . It was signed into law, its formal name is the Stephen Beck, Jr. achieving a better life experience act from December 2014. Basically what it does is increase a new option for some people with disabilities and their families to save for the future while protecting eligibility for their federally funded public benefit. Including their SSI, and there Medicaid . Also other federally funded benefits as well. > So what are some key characteristics of these accounts. And these various ABLE programs. There are eligibility requirements related to opening a ABLE account. When a person
first experiences there disability and related to the severity of the disability. In addition to some of the other tools we will discuss today there are differing characteristics related eligibility especially in ABLE , as it comes to the age of onset of the disability and that has to be that the individual incurred or had an onset of disability prior to their 26 the birth day. Then it has to do with the severity of the disability. Not everybody with a disability will be eligible but some will .
Additionally, an eligible individual is not obligated to enroll in their state of residency. So there is a lot of misunderstanding in terms of not only who could be eligible but where they could enroll in these programs . When the bill was first passed in 2014, what it basically did was allow states to develop these programs. They are very similar in structure is a 529 college savings account . Each individual state has to take it upon themselves to the state legislation, to decide to implement the federal law and disabilities program. And in order for the individual to take advantage of the act, they would have to enroll in their state of residency. About a year after the law was passed, Congress went back and decided to eliminate that . So as of today, provided that you meet the eligibility criteria related to opening an account you can actually enroll in any program in the country that is offering national enrollment, of which is the vast majority of those programs. We will touch on that later .
It's important to know the designated beneficiary of the individual with a disability is the account owner. This differentiates the accounts from perhaps special needs trust where there are trustees who oversee the funds on behalf of the individual . That is not the case with ABLE accounts. The person with the disability is the designated beneficiary and the account owner. That said,
the person with the disability either chooses to not want to administer the account or oversee the account or if they don't have the capacity to do so, there are three different types of individuals that do have, that can be bestowed with signature authority . Oversight of the account on behalf of the person with the disability. That would be the parent, guardian or person with power of attorney.
Additionally, funds in the account can be used for what is called qualified disability related expenses. This is very broad , a broad definition of what these funds can be used for. Basically the definition of what a qualified disability related expense is, is any expense for the benefit of the beneficiary . So the person with the disability, that relates to the disability, that helps that individual maintain or increase their health independence or quality of life. You can imagine that is extremely broad. We wanted to make sure that
definition was as broad as possible because we all know the needs of individuals with disabilities, especially those with significant disabilities, are run across a spectrum of different needs. We didn't want to make it rigid in terms of the things these funds could be used for.
Additionally assets in and distributions for qualified disability related expenses that will be disregarded or given special tax , special treatment when determining eligibility for most federally funded means tested benefits. This is something that makes these accounts very special. As Michael talked about previously, a lot of these individuals have taken advantage of different federally funded means of benefits such as Medicaid, which allows them to live as independently as possible in the community. A lot of these benefits have asset limits. A lot are set at $2000, and anything ever over that you put those essential benefits provided through federal funding in jeopardy. What's important about ABLE
and some other tools we will discuss, is the funds in the account will not be taken into consideration when they look at those assets. That is very important. It is worth mentioning however there is one exception that relates to supplemental security income. That kicks in when the account exceeds $100,000 . At that point the individuals SSI cash benefit to monthly benefit would be temporarily suspended until such time as the account falls back below $100,000. Even if it goes over the $100,000 while the SSI benefit will be suspended, all other benefits related to that eligibility will remain, including Medicaid.
Additionally, anybody can contribute to a individuals ABLE account. Friends, families, hopefully employers in the future, will be able to do so. But there is a total aggregate contribution limit in terms of a single tax year. That basically says all contributions combined from all contributors of which again could be anybody, in any given tax year, generally from January 1 through December 31, will not exceed $14,000. > In terms of the development of these programs, I'm happy to pronounce , announce, that there are currently 16 active programs for enrolling eligible individuals across the country. Even if you live in a state that does not or has not developed and launched their program, you can still provide eligibility criteria and enroll in a program outside of your state, provided they are practicing a national program, of which the 16 states, 14 have national programs. The ones that exclude participation to their own residence is Florida and Kentucky.
In addition to the 16 we expect those name is numbers to double. Hopefully in the next year or year and a half. We certainly expect half of the states in the country will in fact be enrolling folks into ABLE programs by the end of 2017. That is very exciting. A lot of these programs have a lot of similar aspects. Among the ones I mentioned that there is also opportunity and flexibility given to those programs that will allow them to differentiate themselves , such as the fees associated with the account of the different types of investments included in the account. Different types of tools and trainings associated with helping somebody save for whatever the disability related expense maybe.
It is also important to note that we estimate the current number of eligible individuals nationwide is possibly exceeding 10 million and will only increase given pending federal legislation. That we are advocating for to expand eligibility into the future , we will keep on working on.
That was a very quick and brief overview of ABLE accounts. Certainly there are more details associated with the account . And to find those I encourage folks to go to the ABLE national resource center website at able NRC dot oh RG. To watch archived webinars, aspects of the ABLE accounts, here presentation from various programs that are implementing and that have launched programs. ABLE accounts and that are enrolling . There's videos cut other resources, and interactive map to where you can point and click on whatever state you are interested in. They will show you where in the development of their ABLE program they are . There's also a tool on their that lets you compare one ABLE program to another one, based on a list of 12 or 13 characteristics that we feel individuals may want to take into consideration when determining which ABLE program is best for them .
Additionally to that you can always shoot me an email . My email is right there and I am happy to try to answer any questions I can. > Okay, moving on to the next to all. It's called individual development accounts. Or IDA's . A IDA is a special bank account that helps low income individuals and their families save for things related to education, for the purchase of their first home. Or for funds that could help an individual start a business. Most IDA's are offered through programs that involve partnerships with local nonprofit organizations, also called IDA program sponsors. Or with financial institutions. The IDA sponsor recruits program participants and provides financial literacy classes and additionally they may provide counseling and training for efficient savings practices and money management. You use the earnings from your work to set up an approved bank account for the IDA . Like the unlike the IDA accounts where you have friends and family contributing , the IDA's are really there for an individual to put their earned income into. You can again contribute money from your earnings from work, within IDA your contributions may be matched with money from your state TANF program or special funds call demonstration project money. As you can imagine the matching fund can help individuals certainly reach their financial goals in a much quicker pace than perhaps the otherwise could, perhaps saving for things like education or the purchase of a first home, or to help them pursue some business ambitions or starting a business.
So eligibility. What is the eligibility. Again you will notice differences in these tools. Eligibility for a IDA is if you are working and receiving TANF payments , you are probably eligible for a TANF IDA .
The majority of the eligibility is based around your income. These are targeted for low income individuals that are obviously saving for the purposes I mentioned previously. If you are working and either receive TANF or have low income assets you may be eligible for a demonstration project IDA . As we discussed what that is previously. > So again, obviously, a lot of folks with disabilities who are receiving support and services through programs such as Medicaid that have asset limits and income limits I will be very concerned over how these types of accounts, ABLE , IDA , TANF programs , the funds in those are matched, how it may affect their eligibility. It is important to note your SSI or supplemental security income benefit, will not go down. In fact on that SSA website it says it might go up . This is because the earnings, the matching many we discussed, in the interest that goes into your IDA I do not count as your income or resources, when figuring out your SSI benefit . That is an incredible benefit which allows folks again to try and save for their future while not jeopardizing many of their federally funded means of independence . In this case there SSI benefit. > We pulled this again from the Social Security administration website, the impact . At least in that circumstance of IDA that have been around much longer than the ABLE accounts of what kind of impact can they have on real people . It states over the past decade, more than 85,000 IDA's have been opened and programs administered by more than 1100 sites across the country . The impact of this initiative has resulted in more than 9400 new homeowners a 7200 educational purchases and 6400 small business start up and expansion purchases . That is pretty exciting. Obviously when you utilize it appropriately and is is responsibly, and IDA can help an individual in terms of creating a more promising economic future and more stable economic future for themselves. And their families.