If you are receiving Social Security disability benefits under your own work record (meaning you are the disabled worker), then getting married will not affect your benefit payments. This is the case no matter whether your future spouse works, receives disability benefits, or has no income.

Do disabled people lose rights if they get married?

As a result, some disabled people have been forced to divorce and live separately in order to keep SSI and/or Medicaid. If both partners are on SSI and/or Medicaid, they have an even higher risk of losing their benefits. Not only would their income and assets be combined, but they are also hit by a marriage penalty.

Can you marry someone with special needs?

While YES, technically, people with disabilities can get married, SOME face harsh penalties that are so steep they have no choice, but to not get married. Those people with disabilities affected by this penalty also have no CHOICE in choosing to marry who they love.

Can people with mental disability get married?

While there is no law prohibiting disabled people from marrying, in practice there are penalties and restrictions that often limit our freedom to enjoy what Chief Justice Warren called one of the “basic civil rights of man.” Disabled people who depend on medical and financial benefits in order to survive and live …

What happens when persons living with disabilities marry?

If Carrie instead had been receiving a Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefit, based upon her own work record, as a result of later onset of her disability, she would not lose her SSDI entitlement due to marriage. Will Carrie lose her SSI? Will her SSI be reduced?

How to calculate marriage rates for people with disabilities?

And with the marital events questions, you can combine disability information and marriage information. Using marital events (did you get married in the last year), marital history (how many times have you been married), detailed race and ethnicity breakdowns, and the disability questions above, I produced the following figure.

How many people with a hearing disability are married?

There are about 90,000 non-Hispanic Whites with a cognitive disability in my sample, but only 356 people who are both White and American Indian with a hearing disability (the smallest group I included). This sample is people ages 18-49 who have never been married (or just got married).

Why are people with disabilities more likely to divorce?

However, disabilities are very prevalent, especially in an aging society, and the people who experience disabilities differ in important ways from those who do not. Previously I reported — in a preliminary way — that people with disabilities are much more likely to divorce than those without.