SPRINGFIELD — Approximately a quarter-million more Illinoisans with a disability are now eligible for savings accounts that allow them to save and invest money to improve their quality of life without risking their federal benefits such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income.

As of Jan. 1, Achieving a Better Life Experience accounts, or ABLE accounts, are available to people who acquired their disability before the age of 46. Distributions from these accounts are tax-free as long as the money is used for disability-related expenses.

The expanded program now includes approximately 6 million Americans and 800,000 veterans.

“I think this is a gamechanger for a lot of people,” Illinois Treasurer Mike Frerichs said at a news conference this week.

Account owners in Illinois may:

• Be able to take state income tax deducations up to $10,000 if filing as an individual.
• Save and invest up to $20,000 a year. If they’re working, they can add up to $35,650 a year.
• Contribute up to $100,000 without affecting federal benefits, and family and friends can also contribute.

Before the ABLE program, Frerichs said, families told him they worried about saving and investing to ensure their children with disabilities would have financial security in the future because of the risk they might lose their benefits.

“We created a system that put parents in horrible positions but now we have a solution that allows them to do more long-term planning and to truly set their kids up for a better life experience,” he said.

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The ABLE program was created by federal law in 2014, and the age adjustment passed in 2022 and went into effect this year. Before 2014, people with disabilities were unable to have assets worth more than $2,000 without losing access to benefits like SSI and Medicaid.

Martha Younger-White, who manages employment services and rehabilitation programs for Lighthouse Illinois, said many of Lighthouse’s clients hadn’t qualified for the ABLE program because their conditions — like glaucoma and diabetes — happened later in life.

“Many of our clients need the advantages of assistive technology, which is expensive, and in some ways they’d have to choose maybe between their transportation or their health care,” she said. “This will improve their health, their independence and quality of life.”

“What I’ve learned and what I think so many people with disabilities know is that living with a disability just costs more,” said Stephanie Kanter, director of the Illinois ABLE program, at the news conference.

Kanter acquired her disability when she was 26, only a few months beyond the original cutoff for eligibility for these accounts. She said there were multiple ways an ABLE account could have helped her pay for expenses such as modifying her home and car for wheelchair accessibility.

“Before ABLE and before becoming an account owner, if I had a large expense in particular, I had to ask myself where that money was going to come from,” she said. If she couldn’t come up with the money, she might have to go without something that would make her life better.

“With my account, I can now start saving and investing for these types of expenses,” Kanter said. “I already know what I’m starting to save for.”

To open an ABLE account, or to get more information, eligible and authorized Illinoisans  can go to illinoisable.com.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.