Ohio Medicaid threshold, USA News (Ohio): A full-time remote job can elevate personal income while threatening the essential Medicaid coverage that makes working possible for individuals with physical disabilities. A working paper titled Work from Home and Disability Employment indicates that working from home explains 68% to 85% of the post-pandemic increase in full-time employment among people with physical disabilities, noting that a 1-percentage-point increase in remote work raised full-time employment for that group by 1.0%.
Consider a hypothetical woman in Ohio with a spinal cord injury working from her kitchen table to answer customer-service tickets. When offered full-time hours, she runs the numbers and discovers her Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check will disappear, raising fears that her Medicaid card will vanish as well. Fortunately, federal protections allow many workers in her situation to keep Medicaid even after their earnings become too high for an SSI cash payment.
Understanding SSI and Medicaid Rules
Once an individual goes to work, SSI cash and Medicaid follow separate regulatory frameworks. Under Section 1619(b) of the Social Security Act, a worker keeps Medicaid if she received an SSI cash payment for at least one month, continues to meet the disability requirement and other SSI rules, needs Medicaid to keep working, and makes too little to replace SSI, Medicaid, and any publicly funded attendant care.
The SSI asset limit remains in effect, set at $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple in 2026. Savings accumulating in checking accounts can jeopardize coverage more rapidly than wage increases. While SSI provides monthly cash benefits to qualifying people with limited resources, Medicaid provides health coverage. Section 1619(b) preserves health coverage after earnings surpass the cash benefit ceiling.
Earnings Calculations and State Thresholds
The Social Security Administration tracks cash and health coverage separately. For cash benefits, the agency ignores a $20 general income exclusion, the first $65 of monthly earnings, and one-half of earnings exceeding $65. The 2026 federal SSI payment stands at $994 a month, meaning a worker with no other income loses the federal check at roughly $2,073 a month in gross pay. If her remote job pays $2,600 a month, or $31,200 a year, SSA counts $1,257.50 as income, stopping her SSI check.
Health coverage operates under a distinct formula. SSA establishes a 1619(b) threshold for each state based on the earnings that terminate SSI cash payments alongside average local Medicaid expenses. Ohio’s 2026 threshold is $50,138. Because her $31,200 salary falls well below this level, her Medicaid continues.
| State | 2026 Section 1619(b) Threshold |
|---|---|
| Alabama | $40,026 |
| Ohio | $50,138 |
| New York | $68,654 |
| Minnesota | $84,208 |
Thresholds vary widely across the country. Workers exceeding their state threshold can request customized calculations if they have impairment-related work expenses, personal attendants, or high medical costs. If coverage lapses, Ohio offers another alternative through the Medicaid Buy-In for Workers with Disabilities (MBIWD) program, which sets countable income at 250% of the federal poverty level—amounting to $3,325 a month for a single person in 2026—with substantial income exclusions allowing some workers to earn up to $120,820 annually.
