Disabled Adult Child (DAC) Marriage Penalty

The Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefit is a Title II Social Security Administration (“SSA”) disability benefit that provides a monthly stipend, access to Medicare, and a pathway to Medicaid. DAC is a “secondary” benefit based on the work record of a parent who is deceased, disabled, or retired. A person receiving DAC must be a dependent “adult child” aged 18 or older with a qualifying disability that began before age 22. Although DAC is a kind of “Child’s Insurance Benefit,” everyone who receives DAC is an adult. As of December 2025, there are 1.2 million people receiving DAC benefits.

Medicare and Medicaid coverage allow many DAC recipients to receive personal attendant care, direct support professional care, durable medical equipment and other crucial disability-related services.

Individuals receiving DAC benefits lose their monthly stipend and Medicare if they marry; they can also lose their Medicaid. The only exceptions are if the DAC beneficiary marries another person receiving DAC, a person receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), a person entitled to “old age” SSA benefits (earliest age 62), or a person receiving another “secondary” benefit. The loss of Medicare, Medicaid, and the monthly stipend would be life-threatening for many people with significant disabilities. As a result, many DAC recipients cannot marry the person of their choice.

No. Recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can lose their stipend and Medicaid if they marry a person with even a modest income or level of assets, because SSA counts the spouse’s income and assets. If two SSI recipients marry, both individuals face an automatic 25% reduction in cash benefits and their asset cap.

And every beneficiary of a secondary benefit – not only DAC beneficiaries – can lose their eligibility for benefits through marriage.

The penalties that prevent DAC and other disabled recipients of SSA benefits from marrying are particularly unfair:

• People with qualifying disabilities are by definition unable to work at a “substantial gainful activity” level, meaning that disabled beneficiaries cannot readily take affirmative steps to make up for the stipends and health benefits they lose if they marry.
• Unlike most secondary benefits, DAC is based upon the disability of the beneficiary. Further, unlike other secondary benefits, the DAC benefit is associated with young age (disabilities beginning before age 22), which means that the marriage penalty applies throughout the years and ages during which many people wish to marry and start families.
• Our country has historically organized its systems for the delivery of medical care and support services to disabled people through Medicare and Medicaid, making the losses of these benefits untenable for people with significant disabilities.
• People with disabilities have significantly lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates than people without disabilities. The overall first-marriage rate for people ages 18 to 49 in the United States is 24.4 per 1,000 for people with disabilities and 48.9 for people without disabilities. Additionally, between 2009 and 2018, nearly 1.1 million Americans with disabilities got divorced, while only 593,000 got married. In the same period, 1.5 million Americans without disabilities got divorced, while 5.2 million got married. The DAC marriage penalty no doubt contributes to this disparity, as those with disabilities are not incentivized to marry when it would result in significant losses.
• People with disabilities often have significant disability-related expenses that can make their cost of living higher than that of their non-disabled peers.
• Many people cannot afford the extensive healthcare and support costs associated with significant disability.

Recipients of DAC and SSI disproportionately live in poverty. More than 50% of SSI recipients ages 18-64 and nearly 36% of DAC recipients have incomes below poverty– the two highest poverty rates of any category of SSA beneficiaries.

On February 14, 2025, Rep. Jimmy Panetta (CA-19) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), alongside five other original co-sponsors; re-introduced H.R. 1389 – Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act. If passed, the Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act would change current law to allow DAC recipients to freely marry without losing their benefits. In addition, H.R. 1389 would eliminate spousal deeming of income and assets and the 25% asset penalty for people receiving SSI who marry a person receiving DAC. Finally, the bill would end the “holding out” rule for all SSI recipients.

States can increase access to Medicaid through waiver programs that provide more flexible income eligibility. For example, Maryland has recently increased Medicaid access through less stringent income and asset requirements for working people with disabilities.

In 2022, the California state legislature passed SJR 8, which called on the federal government to eliminate DAC marriage penalties.

Other legislation, including S.1234 & H.R.2540 – SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act and S.73 – Eliminating the Marriage Penalty in SSI Act (EMPSA), would address marriage penalties faced by people receiving SSI benefits.

• 42 U.S.C. § 402
• 42 U.S.C. § 423
• 42 U.S.C. § 1382(a), (b)
• United States Social Security Administration, “Benefits Paid By Type Of Beneficiary,” available at https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/icp.html (Under column for “Time series report,” select “Child of retired worker”, “Child of deceased worker”, and “Child of disabled worker.” Set frequency for “monthly,” then Select “Go.” DAC recipients appear in column labeled “Disabled.”).
• United States Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Groups Deemed to be Receiving SSI for Medicaid Purposes,” (June 12, 2002), available at https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/2002groups-deemed-be-receiving-ssi-medicaid- purposes.
• Matt Messel & Brad Trenkamp, “Characteristics of Noninstitutionalized DI, SSI, and OASI Program Participants, 2016 Update,” United States Social Security Administration, available at https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/rsnotes/rsn2022-01.html.
• David A Weaver, Marriage and Social Security: The Case of Disabled Adult Child Beneficiaries, available at  https://ssrn.com/abstract=3507766.
• Benjamin Bridges & Robert V. Gesumaria, “Poverty Status of Social Security Beneficiaries, by Type of Benefit,” Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 76 No. 4, 2016 (November 2016), Table 3, available at https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v76n4/v76n4p19.html.
• Maryland Department of Health, “Report on Maryland Medical Assistance Program – Employed Individuals With Disabilities,” (January 2025), Pages 2-3, available at https://health.maryland.gov/mmcp/Documents/JCRs/2024/EIDpremiumJCRfinal12-24.pdf.