Many people wonder whether working part-time while receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits is allowed. This is because working part-time during the application process may impact the assessment of disability claims, as it could raise doubts about the severity of the medical condition.
You can work part-time while applying for Social Security disability payments, as long as your wages don’t exceed the substantial gainful activity (SGA) limit. If you earn more than the SGA, Social Security will assume you can perform a full-time job, thus disqualifying you from receiving disability payments.
Working part-time while receiving SSDI payments is a topic that will be covered in full in this article.
Working Part-Time Before the Approval Of Benefits
It can take months and even years for benefits to be approved, and you need to be able to support yourself. Each applicant’s individual circumstances and medical conditions will help determine whether working part-time is right for them. For instance, if you received a liver transplant, you will qualify for benefits for 12 months from the date of surgery.
While continuously earning less than $1,470 per month is possible in theory, working more than a few hours each week to reach this goal puts you in danger. A claims examiner or administrative law judge may be less likely to think that your medical condition is so severely limiting your ability to function that you are fully disabled if they observe that you can work a few hours a week.
For instance, SSA might believe you can work full-time at a demanding job if you have demonstrated the ability to do it on a part-time basis. Or they might think that you are only working part-time because you cannot find full-time employment and not due to a physical condition.
Some disability lawyers urge their clients to refrain from working at all until benefits have been awarded because working in any capacity can make it more difficult to convince Social Security that they are disabled.
Will Working Part-Time Result in Losing Disability Benefits?
The rules for part-time employment change once you begin receiving assistance. The SGA limit still applies to SSDI recipients, but you can now access a “trial work period.” You are permitted to earn more than the SGA cap for nine months.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients do not have an SGA limit except for the first month they receive benefits. However, they are still subject to the program’s income limits.
However, Social Security will decrease your SSI payments as your income rises. Additionally, your SSI benefit will be eliminated once you start making more than about $1,900 per month.
SGA Limit
The SGA ceiling is $1,470 per month in 2023. The cap is $2,460 for blind SSDI applicants. You won’t be qualified for SSDI if the earnings from your part-time employment exceed SGA.
Social Security may consider your ability to work a certain number of hours and your income. It may be more challenging to persuade the Social Security Administration that you are disabled if, for instance, your monthly payment is less than $1,470 and you can work 30 hours per week.
Are There Any Exceptions to the SGA Limit?
There is some truth to the claim made by some disability advocates that the monthly SGA earnings cap is an arbitrary, unreasonable sum without any real foundation.
As an illustration, someone making the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) can work 32 hours per week and still earn less than the SGA amount, whereas an individual making much more ($42 per hour, for example) can only work five hours per week before losing their eligibility for benefits.
Social Security may consider factors that influence the actual worth of your labor. Some of these factors will be examined in the sections that follow:
1. Test of Comparability To Compare Your Work With Others
The Social Security Administration may investigate whether your work is equivalent to that performed by non-disabled people in the same or a related occupation.
When considering whether you are engaging in SGA-level labor activity, Social Security may determine that the dollar amount you receive either does not accurately reflect the worth of your work or is excessively high or low.
2. Special Accommodations
Some employers make specific accommodations or adjustments for disabled workers so they can perform their jobs. When evaluating the genuine worth of their workers’ work, employers should consider the potential financial costs associated with these adjustments.
Social Security refers to such charges as impairment-related work expenses, and they may be subtracted from an individual’s earnings to determine their monthly work benefit.
3. Subsidized Payments By Your Employer
Representatives for Social Security claims may determine whether your work is worth less than what you are paid. They consider that some businesses give disabled workers their total wages even when their disabilities prevent them from completing work that would be worth that compensation.
For instance, Social Security might only include half of your earnings toward the SGA limit if your employer pays you a total income but you only perform half of the usual job obligations.
Challenges of Obtaining Disability with Part-Time Employment History
Social Security is generally intended to approve you for disability benefits if you cannot work full-time (40 hours per week) regularly and sustainably.
Not all part-time employment will be considered as a previously relevant job when considering your ability to work full-time. Jobs you held more than 15 years ago won’t be taken into account by Social Security, and any part-time work where your earnings fell below the SGA threshold won’t be taken into account.
Conclusion
After obtaining benefits, part-time employment is permitted, but the SGA cap still remains. If a prior part-time job is regarded as relevant and the claimant is deemed capable of returning to such positions based on their residual functional capacity (RFC), disability claims may be rejected.
Understanding the effects of part-time employment on disability claims is crucial. For advice, speak with a disability attorney or advocate.
