Free meals from family or friends no longer shrink your SSI check

If you get Supplemental Security Income (SSI), groceries or meals that family, friends, or anyone else give you no longer count against your check. Before Sept. 30, 2024, Social Security treated free food as a kind of income called “in-kind support and maintenance.” That could cut your monthly payment by up to about a third. Now only help with shelter costs, like rent, a mortgage, or utilities, is counted.

You don’t have to apply. Social Security no longer asks you to report the value or cost of food support. It may still ask whether people in your household provide all your meals, but only to decide which method to use when valuing shelter support. The agency projected about $1.6 billion more in SSI payments from fiscal 2024 through 2033, and about 26,000 more people on SSI by 2033 who wouldn’t have qualified under the old rules. AARP reported that more than 90,000 current recipients would see bigger checks, by an average of $131 a month.

Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi proposed the change in February 2023. More than 95% of the 4,386 public comments supported it. Commissioner Martin O’Malley approved the final rule in March 2024, calling it a common-sense fix for a burdensome policy. Because it’s an agency rule and not a law, a future administration could try to reverse it. We found no effort to do that as of November 2026.