42 U.S.C. § 428 — Benefits at age 72 for certain uninsured individuals

(a) Eligibility A person qualifies for a benefit under this section only if all of these are true: (1) the person has turned 72; (2) either the person turned 72 before 1968, or the person turned 72 after 1967 and before 1972 and has at least 3 quarters of coverage for every calendar year after 1966 and before the year they turned 72; (3) the person is a resident of the United States and is either a U.S. citizen or a lawfully admitted permanent resident who has lived continuously in the United States for the 5 years right before filing; and (4) the person has filed an application. If all four are met, the person gets a benefit for each month starting with the first month after September 1966 in which they qualify, through the month before they die. An application filed more than 3 months before the person actually meets requirements (1), (2), and (3) does not count. (b) Amount of benefits The monthly benefit is the larger of two numbers: $64.40, or the amount most recently set in its place under section 415(i). (c) Reduction for government pension system benefits (1) The benefit is reduced, but never below zero, by the amount of any periodic government pension benefit the person is eligible for that month. (2) If only one spouse in a couple gets a benefit under this section, that benefit is further reduced (never below zero) by however much the other spouse's government pension benefits exceed what the entitled spouse's own benefit would otherwise be. (3) If both spouses get benefits under this section, each spouse's benefit is further reduced (never below zero) by however much the other spouse's government pension benefits exceed that other spouse's own benefit amount. (4) In deciding whether someone is eligible for a government pension for these reductions, the law assumes: the person has applied for it; the person's spouse has applied for it if that's required; and both have already retired if retirement is required for eligibility. (5) If a government pension is paid on some schedule other than monthly, the Commissioner of Social Security spreads its value across the right calendar months. (6) If, after all this, the monthly amount would come to less than $1, it is cut to zero. For a couple where both get benefits, this $1 rule applies to their combined total, not each person separately. (7) If a computed benefit is not an even multiple of $0.10, it is rounded up to the next $0.10. (8) The Commissioner may let payments under $5 build up until they reach $5 before paying them out. (d) Suspension for months in which cash payments are made under public assistance or in which supplemental security income benefits are payable No benefit is paid for a month in which the person — or the person's spouse, if the person's needs were counted in the spouse's aid — receives state cash assistance under specific federal-state aid programs. The only exception is if the state notifies the Commissioner that this aid is ending with that month's payment and the person will not be getting SSI the following month. Separately, no benefit is paid for any month in which the person is eligible for SSI, unless the Commissioner decides SSI will not actually be payable to that person the following month. (e) Suspension where individual is residing outside United States No benefit is paid for any month in which the person does not live in the United States. For this subsection, "United States" means the 50 states and the District of Columbia. (f) Treatment as monthly insurance benefits For certain other purposes — subsections (t) and (u) of section 402, and section 1395s (which deals with Medicare enrollment) — a monthly benefit paid under this section counts as if it were a regular monthly insurance benefit under section 402. (g) Annual reimbursement of Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund Congress authorizes yearly appropriations to reimburse the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. This covers: (1) payments made under this section, in the second-earlier fiscal year and all fiscal years before that, to people who had less than 3 quarters of coverage as of the start of the calendar year containing the paid month; (2) the extra administrative cost of making those payments; and (3) any interest the Trust Fund lost because of those payments and costs. The goal is to put the Trust Fund back in the same financial position it would have been in if these payments had never been made. (h) Definitions (1) "Quarter of coverage" includes a quarter of coverage as defined for railroad retirement purposes in section 228e(l) of title 45. (2) "Governmental pension system" means Social Security itself, or any other pension system set up by the United States, a state, a subdivision of a state, or an entity wholly owned by any of them, that pays pensions, retirement or retired pay, or annuities for personal services — but this does not include workers' compensation payments or VA compensation for a service-connected disability or death. (3) "Periodic benefit" includes a lump-sum payment if that lump sum is standing in for what would otherwise be periodic payments. (4) Whether someone counts as a husband or wife for any month is decided under subsection (h) of section 416, without using subsections (b) and (f) of section 416.