diff --git a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/capital-accounts.md b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/capital-accounts.md
index 1a7fc01..fbd8bf3 100644
--- a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/capital-accounts.md
+++ b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/capital-accounts.md
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ Members can also raise their own salaries instead of taking profit, but that doe
 - **Small balances are paid early, for everyone.** Once anyone's whole balance is under $2,000, member or not, it's paid at the next payout date. That keeps a co-op from tracking small sums for years, and since it doesn't depend on leaving, nobody gains by quitting.
 - **There's no penalty for leaving.** Mondragon used to cut the payout by up to 30% for people who quit. This model doesn't, because a core promise of [the tenure cap](worker-ownership.md) is that you can change jobs without losing what you've built.
 - **Accounts are capped at one year's pay,** measured as the highest pay in the last three years, so nobody can cut their own pay to get their money sooner. Anything above that is paid out every year in cash, which a member can put in their own retirement account and invest in anything. Nobody should end up with most of their savings tied to the same company that pays their wages.
-- **Any payout can be spread out.** Members get 90 days' notice of each payout and can ask for it in up to 12 monthly payments, so one check doesn't push a family over a limit for public benefits ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#benefits)).
+- **Any payout can be spread out.** Members get 90 days' notice of each payout and can take it at once or in up to 12 monthly payments, whichever works better with the public benefits they get ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#benefits)).
 - **On death, the account goes to the person you name,** your spouse unless you name someone else with their written consent, on the normal schedule.
 - **In a divorce, a court can split the account.** The former spouse gets a separate account of their own, with no vote, paid out on the normal schedule.
 - **Every year, each person gets a statement** showing each credit, any losses charged to it, and the date it will be paid. Former members get one too. A dispute gets a written answer within 90 days and can go to an outside arbitrator from the federation's list, or to court.
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ A payout system can also be used to strip a failing firm. People who see trouble
 - **After two years, a pause becomes a debt with a schedule.** Whatever is still unpaid becomes a note the co-op repays in equal parts over five years, still behind its lenders, and the [insurance pool](savings-guarantee.md) covers former members' insured amounts if the co-op fails. So the worst case for a member who leaves is a long wait: up to seven years for the last credit, plus the pause, plus the note. The co-op's bylaws have to say so in plain words.
 - **Losses are spread evenly.** When a loss is charged to members' accounts, it's charged to every year's credits that haven't been paid yet, in proportion, not to the newest or the oldest first. So the timing of payouts can't be used to dodge a loss.
 - **Payouts rank behind the co-op's lenders.** In a bankruptcy, members' accounts are paid only after the co-op's creditors. That's the honest cost of being an owner, and it's the main reason for the one-year-of-pay cap.
-- **The co-op doesn't lend to members against their accounts.** That would just be an early withdrawal by another name. Members can use their account as collateral with an outside lender.
+- **Accounts can't be cashed in early, sold, pledged or borrowed against,** from the co-op or anyone else. That would just be an early withdrawal by another name. It also keeps the account from counting against public benefits' savings limits before it's paid ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#benefits)). The only transfers are to a named person on death and a court's division in a divorce.
 - **Savings are insured, up to a point.** Every locked co-op belongs to a members' savings insurance pool, paid for by the co-ops. It covers workers' final unpaid wages, former members' unpaid payouts up to $50,000, and a protected slice of current members' accounts. See [Protecting Members' Savings](savings-guarantee.md).
 - **No other savings in the co-op.** A co-op can't take deposits from its members or sell them bonds. A member's only money in the co-op is their account.
 
diff --git a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/high-turnover.md b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/high-turnover.md
index bb30b39..3ca3653 100644
--- a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/high-turnover.md
+++ b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/high-turnover.md
@@ -101,5 +101,9 @@ A co-op can choose the short end of the ramp. This page doesn't shorten it furth
 - **Automatic membership hasn't been tried at a large care co-op.** It should raise membership a lot. How much, and whether default members take part in governance, is unknown.
 - **A short probation means less time to judge fit.** A co-op admits people it has known for three months, and they vote. That's the trade-off the model accepts. The ramp limits what a poor fit costs in money. It doesn't limit their vote.
 - **The stable minority can still run things.** Office staff and coordinators often stay while aides come and go. One member, one vote and paid meeting time help. They don't guarantee aides a real voice.
-- **Some things need legal work.** How membership interacts with tax filing for members without Social Security numbers, with visa status, and with the asset limits of public benefits needs answers before care co-ops sign people up automatically. Federal labor law probably doesn't protect union activity by members who own the firm. The charter protects it instead, and fixing the law takes a separate bill ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md#union-rights-the-biggest-gap)).
+- **Some legal questions have answers now, and some don't.**
+  - **Taxpayer numbers.** An individual taxpayer number from the IRS doesn't "authorize you to work legally in the U.S." ([IRS](https://www.irs.gov/tin/itin/individual-taxpayer-identification-number-itin)). Members have to be employees verified as allowed to work, so workers who have only that number can't be members. That's a gap in the model, not a fix ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#what-this-doesnt-solve)).
+  - **Work permits that lapse.** Many care workers work on permits that have to be renewed or can be ended, such as Temporary Protected Status. A member whose permit lapses has to come off the payroll. They keep their account, which pays out on its normal schedule, and for 12 months they keep their place on the ramp and rejoin without a new probation once they can work again. Workers on a visa tied to their employer get a free consult with an immigration lawyer through the federation before they're signed up. Owning part of a co-op doesn't raise the special rules some visas have for owners, which start at "more than 50 percent" of the employer or "majority voting rights" ([8 CFR 214.2(h)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/214.2)).
+  - **Benefits.** The share and account credits that haven't come due shouldn't count as savings for SSI or food assistance, because the bylaws bar members from getting at them early. But SSI may count a credit as income when it's made, and may count the share as unearned income, which it treats harshly. So workers on SSI or disability benefits, found through a confidential check the federation runs, not the co-op, become members only if they say yes, and get their share all in cash until Social Security says how it counts it ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#benefits)). Opting out doesn't change how a cash share is counted, and the notice says so.
+  - **Unions.** Federal labor law probably doesn't protect union activity by members who own the firm. The charter protects it instead, and fixing the law takes a separate bill ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md#union-rights-the-biggest-gap)).
 - **Opting out can still be pressured, and pushing people out can still be hidden.** An independent lock-holder and results-based checks make both harder. They can't make them impossible.
diff --git a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/open-problems.md b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/open-problems.md
index 34194cc..e8c560c 100644
--- a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/open-problems.md
+++ b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/open-problems.md
@@ -37,6 +37,6 @@ An honest list of what the model hasn't solved yet, most dangerous first.
 
 12. **Voluntary buyouts: in or out?** *(Answered.)* In, on a separate track: $100 million of its own, healthy firms only, a willing seller, no new tax break, a capped price the seller shares the risk on, a vote of the whole workforce, and its own test of money and pay, so it can't flatter the startup result ([When an Owner Wants to Sell to the Workers](buyouts.md)). Still open: whether a price set by the market is fair to workers who pay it out of their own future work, and whether about 60 deals can show more than that the loans get repaid.
 
-13. **Work where people don't stay long.** *(Partly answered.)* In home care, most workers leave within a year or two. Membership is now automatic after a short probation, the buy-in comes out of profit shares rather than pay, and pushing people out before they'd join counts against the co-op ([When People Don't Stay Long](high-turnover.md)). Still open: with a five-to-ten-year profit share ramp, only a small minority of care workers ever reach a full share, so the people who stay collect much of the profit the others helped make. A much shorter ramp for low-margin, high-turnover co-ops would fix that, but it would go against the founding plan's range and weaken the ramp's protection against under-hiring. Also open: whether default members take part in governance, and the legal questions around tax IDs, visas and benefit asset limits. How labor law treats worker-owners now has its own page ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md)). Federal labor law probably doesn't protect members' own organizing, so the charter does, and fixing the law takes a separate bill that may never pass. Some states leave members out of unemployment insurance, and whether founders' unpaid work before the co-op forms is outside wage law still needs the Labor Department's answer.
+13. **Work where people don't stay long.** *(Partly answered.)* In home care, most workers leave within a year or two. Membership is now automatic after a short probation, the buy-in comes out of profit shares rather than pay, and pushing people out before they'd join counts against the co-op ([When People Don't Stay Long](high-turnover.md)). Still open: with a five-to-ten-year profit share ramp, only a small minority of care workers ever reach a full share, so the people who stay collect much of the profit the others helped make. A much shorter ramp for low-margin, high-turnover co-ops would fix that, but it would go against the founding plan's range and weaken the ramp's protection against under-hiring. Also open: whether default members take part in governance, and whether Social Security counts a profit share as earned income for SSI, which decides whether members on SSI lose more by joining. SSI may also count an account credit as income when it's made. Until Social Security answers, members on SSI get their share all in cash and join only if they say yes ([How a Locked Co-op Is Taxed](taxes.md#benefits)), and workers who have only an IRS taxpayer number still can't be members. How labor law treats worker-owners now has its own page ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md)). Federal labor law probably doesn't protect members' own organizing, so the charter does, and fixing the law takes a separate bill that may never pass. Some states leave members out of unemployment insurance, and whether founders' unpaid work before the co-op forms is outside wage law still needs the Labor Department's answer.
 
 *Not problems here, because nobody's company is forcibly bought:* valuing every firm in the economy, owners stripping value before a takeover, foreign capital flight, and years of payouts to former owners. The contractor boundary isn't an economy-wide problem either. Its co-op version, hiring non-members to dodge membership, is handled by [the lock](the-lock.md)'s membership requirement.
diff --git a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/taxes.md b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/taxes.md
index 2642ff3..f10efb4 100644
--- a/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/taxes.md
+++ b/JoshHeaps.Net/Content/Socialism/taxes.md
@@ -98,11 +98,34 @@ If the IRS wins, members pay about 15% more on their profit shares. Low-paid mem
 
 ## Benefits
 
-Profit shares count as income for Medicaid, health insurance subsidies, food assistance and housing aid, even when they're kept in an account. A lump sum can push a family over a limit for a month or a year. So:
+Many care and cleaning workers count on public programs, and becoming a member shouldn't cost anyone their benefits. The aim is for benefits agencies to count this money correctly, not to hide it from them. Programs look at two things: savings and income.
 
-- the lower-income defaults above keep account credits from counting until they're paid;
-- anyone can ask for a payout from their account in up to 12 monthly payments, so one payment doesn't push them over a limit for savings, like the one for Supplemental Security Income;
-- the federation offers benefits advice to every member, along with the templates and training it already supplies ([The Federation](federation.md)).
+### Savings
+
+Some programs have a savings limit. For Supplemental Security Income (SSI), it's $2,000 for one person ([20 CFR 416.1205](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1205)), and Medicaid for older and disabled people generally uses similar rules. Medicaid for most working-age adults has no savings limit at all: "A State shall not apply any assets or resources test" ([42 U.S.C. 1396a(e)(14)(C)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1396a)).
+
+**The membership share and credits that haven't come due shouldn't count as savings,** because members can't turn them into cash. SSI counts property a person "could convert to cash," and "if a property right cannot be liquidated, the property will not be considered a resource" ([20 CFR 416.1201](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1201)). Food assistance (SNAP) doesn't count "resources having a cash value which is not accessible to the household" either ([7 CFR 273.8(e)(8)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/273.8)). That only holds if members really can't get at the money. So the standard bylaws say that **the share and account credits can't be withdrawn early, sold, given away, pledged or borrowed against**, except that they pass to a named person on death and a court can divide them in a divorce ([Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md#how-its-paid-out)). The co-op gives members a statement of the facts for their caseworker: the balance, the payment dates and that clause.
+
+### Income
+
+Profit shares count as income for Medicaid, marketplace health insurance subsidies, food assistance and housing aid. Four things make this harder than it looks.
+
+**SSI may count a credit when it's made, not when it's paid.** SSI counts income "at the earliest of the following points: when you receive it or when it is credited to your account or set aside for your use" ([20 CFR 416.1123](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1123); the same for wages in [§ 416.1111](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1111)). A member under twice the poverty line can already choose to take their whole share in cash, so a credit they leave in the account could be seen as income they set aside. So **members on SSI get their whole share in cash, with nothing credited to an account and nothing held back for the buy-in,** until Social Security says how it counts credits. They're full members all the same.
+
+**SSI may count the share as the less favorable kind of income.** Wages, including "bonuses... received because of your employment," are earned income ([20 CFR 416.1110](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1110)), and SSI ignores the first $65 a month and half of the rest ([§ 416.1112](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1112)). Dividends, "returns on capital investments," are unearned income ([§ 416.1121](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/416.1121)), and SSI ignores much less of it. The model argues the share is an owner's share for tax purposes ([Owners Are Still Workers](labor-law.md#is-the-profit-share-pay)), and Social Security may take it at its word. So every example shown to a member on SSI assumes the worse answer, and the same question matters for other rules for disabled workers, including the ones that let them keep Medicaid as they earn more. Opting out of membership doesn't change this, because workers who aren't members get a cash share too.
+
+**Timing helps some programs and hurts others.** SNAP treats a one-time lump sum as savings, not income ([7 CFR 273.9(c)(8)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/273.9)). SSI counts it as income in the month it arrives. So a payout from an account can come as one payment or up to 12 monthly payments, and which is better depends on the member's programs. The federation's benefits advice helps each member choose.
+
+**ABLE accounts protect savings, not income.** A member with an ABLE account, a savings account for people whose disability began young, can have payouts paid into it. Balances up to $100,000 don't count against SSI's savings limit, but the money still counts as income in the month it's paid, and deposits are capped each year ($20,000 in 2026) ([POMS SI 01130.740](https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0501130740)).
+
+### What the co-op and federation do
+
+- **A benefits check before anyone is signed up automatically.** The federation, not the co-op, offers every worker on probation a confidential benefits check in their own language. The co-op doesn't ask anyone about disability or benefits. A worker the check shows is on SSI or disability benefits becomes a member only if they say yes.
+- **A statement at every credit and every payment,** so members can report both to their agencies on time. Members are told they must report them.
+- **Getting an answer from Social Security.** Social Security doesn't give advance rulings. The federation asks it in writing for guidance on how it counts profit shares and credits, and supports a real member's case through appeal if needed. It shares the answer with every co-op.
+- **Benefits advice for every member,** along with the templates and training the federation already supplies ([The Federation](federation.md)).
+
+The model doesn't shrink the benefit cliffs themselves. A low-paid member on several programs at once can lose much of a profit share to lower benefits and higher rent. The advice can show them that before they decide. It can't change it.
 
 ## Getting certainty