SOCIAL SECURITY
BENEFITS CALCULATOR

MEDIUM: Microsoft Visual Studio Code, GitHub, Netlify

Created in May 2024, this coding project started as a final project for Programming in UX Design (IDIA 619). Our class mission is to develop a program that can help make a world a better place. We have to discover a problem and create a JavaScript program that can help solve issues for certain people. We are limited to write our program in under 100 lines of code. There were two ideas that I want to do which is the SSA Calculator or the organic items locator. The reason for these ideas is the upbringing of being near low-income families even my issue with myself living off social security benefits. Out of the two I decided to develop an SSA Calculator.

There has been news recently that SSI and SSDI recipients keep getting overpayment letters because of how SSA pay them too much and how much they try to collect back the money. This hurts explicitly the people living under SSI /SSDI with a job since They don't know how much money they can or should make or the hours, they can work so their benefits would not cut off. As one of the people who were living off benefits and working part-time as a graduate intern at my university, I was out the many were affected by this issue.

I started the bare bones of HTML to set up the format of the calculator, then created the function to activate the user inputs thou JavaScript. All the users can do is just simply input how much they get paid a month from their job and how much a month SSA is giving them money too. Then the same calculation that SSA asked for is going to be printed, which is much easier than doing math in your head. They can also input how many hours a day, hourly rate, and days per week that they can hold down their job without losing any benefits. The video will then explain concepts of the code and how the function works through typical math.