The law requires that payees for disabled/blind SSI recipients under age 18 establish
and maintain an account in a financial institution for certain past-due benefit payments
made on or after August 23, 1996. This account must be a separate account from any
other account into which regular monthly SSI payments are deposited. No other funds
are allowed to be deposited in the separate account except certain subsequent SSI
underpayments and past-due benefits. The law also restricts the items and services
that the payee is permitted to purchase with funds in the separate account.
Because this account must be separately maintained and may only be used for certain
specified expenditures, we use the term “dedicated account.”