>> This is Nancy Boutot with NDI consulting and welcome to today's webinar, Ticket to
Work and Work Incentives, a two part series.
We're very happy to introduce our two part series to you and part one today we will be
discussing supplemental security income, also known as SSI.
So before we get started, just a few housekeeping items.
For accessing today's webinar, you can manage your audio using the audio portion at the
top of your screen.
It will look like a microphone or it may look like a telephone icon.
All attendees will be muted so you will be in listen only mode, which you can choose
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so please make sure that your speakers are turned on and that your headphones are plugged
in.
Continuing with accessing today's webinar, if you do not have sound capabilities on your
computer of if you prefer to listen by phone, you can dial toll free 1-800-832-0736 and
the access code is 8458462#.
Continuing with accessibility, real time captioning is being provided during this webinar and
the captions can be found in the captioning pod, which appears right below the slides
you are seeing right now.
You can also access captioning online by going
to www.captionedtext.com For questions and answers today, please use the question and
answer pod to submit any questions you have during the webinar and we will direct those
questions accordingly during the Q&A portion.
We do have over 1,000 people registered today and close to 300people on the line right now
so we will attempt to get to as many questions as possible but just be patient with us.
If you're listening by phone as I said, and not logged in, you may ask questions by emailing
questions to webinars@chooseswork.ssa.gov and that email changed recently so I want
to repeat it a second time.
Webinars@choosework.ssa.gov.
Please note that the webinar is being recorded and archives will be available within two
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during the webinar, please use the Q&A box to send a message or you can also send an
email to webinars@choosework.ssa.gov.
We are very happy to have a wonderful group of presenters today.
As I mentioned before, I am your moderator Nancy [inaudible] with MDI Consulting and
then we also have Debbie Schwartz and John E. Marshall Jr. with us, both from the Social
Security Administration.
The topics that we're going to be covering today are Social Security disability benefits,
my Social Security accounts, Social Security's Ticket to Work program, work incentives, tying
work incentives together, and then we will also have additional resources for you at
the end of the presentation and we will, like I said, get to your questions and answers
as quickly as possible and get to as many of those questions as possible.
Before I introduce the speakers, I want to talk for a moment about our goals today.
Our goals are to gain a greater understanding of Social Security's Ticket to Work program
and work incentives, to learn how to achieve financial independence through work, and to
learn who can help you on your path to work.
And again, to do that we have two wonderful presenters, Debbie Schwartz.
Debbie is an area work incentives coordinator and she is based out of Ohio and she has been
with the Social Security Administration for 36 years.
Debbie has traveled the country presenting Social Security and Ticket to Work work incentives
at events throughout the country to promote awareness of the options available to individuals
with disabilities.
And, John Marshall is also an area work incentives coordinator.
He is based in the Chicago Metropolitan Northern Indiana area.
He is a policy specialist with an expertise in work incentives and has more than35 years
of experience at the Social Security Administration.
So having said that, we are going to move on and I am going to turn it over first to
John.
>> Thank you Nancy and good afternoon everyone.
I'm going to talk about the Social Security disability benefit programs.
Now, most people think of Social Security and think of the retirement and our survivor's
program but however, we do have two disability programs that we have at Social Security.
One is called Social Security disability insurance (SSDI) that is normally received on the third
or some people might receive it on a Wednesday of the month, and we do have a program called
supplemental security income and that is normally received on the first of the month.
Both programs require you to meet our disability requirements and that is to be disabled and
not be able to earn more than $1,170 a month and that's at the initial stage of the situation.
However, once you become disabled and you start receiving those benefits, you're eligible
for certain work incentives that we'll talk about later.
We can move on to the next slide and talk about Social Security disability insurance,
specifically that's the check I referred to that normally people receive on the third
or some people receive on the Wednesday of the month and it's an insurance program.
It's insurance based on the FICA taxes that are taken out of your paycheck when you work,
and those are the FICA taxes that people get taken out of their paychecks when they get
the gross and you see it reduced by FICA and by federal income tax and by state taxes and
stuff like that.
FICA is the tax that helps you become insured for Social Security disability insurance and
if you pay it enough over your work history, you can become insured.
Now, the more that you pay over your work history, the higher your monthly benefit is
going to be so like I said, Social Security disability insurance is an insurance program
and so it's normally paid on the third or an alternate Wednesday during the month.
Next slide, supplemental security income, that's SSI is a needs based program and that's
the check that will come on the first of the month.
The program is based on income and resources and having low income and low resources.
The purpose of supplemental security income is to provide for food, clothing, and shelter
needs of the individual and it takes into account spouse's income and if it's a child
that's receiving the supplemental security income check or the SSI check, it takes into
account the parents' income and resources.
We also look at the living arrangements to try and see just what your expenses are so
we can give you the right amount.
Now, the maximum amount you can get from supplemental security income is $735 a month.
Now, let's move to the next slide.
Now, if you are insured for Social Security disability benefits but the amount is less
than $755 a month, then you may be also eligible for SSI in addition to your Social Security
benefits to bring that amount to $755 a month.
Some people call it concurrent benefits, but it's when you're receiving both supplemental
security income and Social Security disability insurance.
Next slide.
Now, we're going to talk a little bit about using the My Social Security account to understand
your benefits.
Everyone, once you go onto your website, you'll be able to see a section that talks about
establishing a My Social Security account and setting up a My Social Security account
is easy.
You can open your account online at www.ssa.gov/myaccount and select My Social Security and click on
create an account or login.
If you're creating an account, you will need to pass an identity test.
There will be a few questions generated from your credit report.
We will use the credit bureau information to assure that we verify your identity because
this is your information and we want to protect your information.
These questions are stronger than just asking for your date of birth or your mother's maiden
name and things like that.
Then you have to create a username and password.
This will allow you to access your private Social Security information securely any time
you need it and you will create answers to the selected questions to reset your password
if you can't recall it, so it gives you that option.
Now, let's go to the next slide.
>> John?
>> What can I do-
>> Hey John?
>> Yes?
>> Hey, this is Nancy [inaudible].
I hate to interrupted you but it looks like we're having a little technical difficulty
not with you but we're seeing some extra information in our slides, kind of seeing an outline so
I'm just going to ask that you hold off for a second until we get that fixed.
We are doing great on time so it won't be a problem at all.
>> Okay.
>> We did already have a couple questions come in so whether it be you or Debbie, I'm
going to ask a couple questions and look, our IT folks already have it fixed but I am
going to ask this question because a lot of people wonder about this.
Somebody said they heard that they have to keep one dollar in SSI in order to keep their
Medicaid benefits.
Is that true?
>> No, that is not true.
Under the Social Security Act under the [inaudible] portion of the Social Security Act, if someone
has zero dollars received in supplemental security incomes and still receives/be eligible
for free Medicaid-
>> We'll definitely be talking about that later.
>> Yeah, we'll be talking about that later but ultimately, you'll get to it's called
1619B and Debbie is going to talk about that a few slides down the row.
>> All right wonderful then I see that, thank you very much for that both of you, I see
that we have our screen back up so if you don't mind John, if you could just pick up
and redo slide 16, this way we'll make sure that everybody got that information since
that's when I started talking to you on the slide.
Thank you so much.
>> Oh no problem, no problem.
Now okay, let's go back to how you open a My Social Security account.
It's very easy.
You just go into www.ssa.gov/myaccount all one word, to register.
Once you get there, you'll click on create an account or you'll log in if you already
have an account.
If you're creating an account, you'll need to pass what we call our identity test.
There will be a few questions that are generated from your credit report.
We use that credit bureau information to assure that we verify your identity.
We want to be protective of your private information and these questions are stronger than just
asking you for your date of birth or for your mother's maiden name or things like that.
When we're done asking those questions, we'll ask you to create your user name and a password.
This will allow you to access your private Social Security information securely any time
you need it and you will create answers to security questions if you ever need to reset
your password in case you might forget your password.
Next slide.
Now, these are the things that you can actually do with the My Social Security account.
You can check your application status, you can get a benefit verification letter, you
can change your contact information, you can start or change your direct deposition.
You can get a replacement card or a 1099 or 1042S and you can request a replacement card.
You can even request a replacement of your Medicare card and of course, you can change
your phone number and things along that order.
You can also get your earnings records for yourself.
Next slide.
Now Debbie Schwartz will be doing the Ticket to Work for you.
>> Thanks John.
The Social Security's Ticket to Work program provides a multitude of options for allowing
a person with a disability to fulfill their personal vocational goals.
If we can go to the next slide we'll go over what the Ticket to Work program is.
It's a voluntary program offered nationwide that supports career development for people
with disabilities who want to work.
Anyone receiving Social Security disability or supplemental security income, SSI disability
benefits from ages 18 through 64, are eligible for the benefits of the Ticket to Work program
and it is free.
I really want to stress it is a voluntary program.
We can go to the next slide to talk about how the Ticket to Work program works.
I love the flexibility that the Ticket to Work program provides.
With so many employment networks and state vocational rehabilitation offices to choose
from, you can contact several to decide which one you are most comfortable with.
There are over 680 employment networks in the state VR agencies nationwide.
Once you have identified the employment network or state VR worker that you wish to work with,
you and that provider will create a plan for employment to describe the services and supports
that you will need to meet your personal goal.
Based on these goals and the success that you have with the program, you will reduce
and eliminate your need for the Social Security or SSI payments with replacing them with your
earnings from work.
The goal is to help allow you to earn more, save more, and create greater financial stability
and security.
John, did you want to take it from here?
>> Sure, now we're about to talk about the work incentives that we have with our Social
Security disability programs and that's with both our Social Security disability insurance
programs and with our supplemental security income.
Now, work incentives are the things that we have in our programs that could inspire you
to work, things that make it easier for you to go from just receiving benefits to actually
going to work.
Next slide.
Work incentives are special rules that allow you to receive training for new skills, improve
the skills that you already have, pursue your education in some instances, try different
jobs, start a career and gain confidence in working and gaining confidence in basically
being able to bring money into your household.
We encourage people once they start receiving Social Security disability insurance benefits
or supplemental security income benefits, we encourage people to work if that's what
they want to do.
Now, next slide.
Now we're going to talk about supplemental security income or SSI work incentives and
these are work incentives that are specific to the supplemental security income SSI program.
Next slide.
Now, some common supplemental security income work incentives are the earned income exclusion
and we're going to go into that pretty soon, the student earned income exclusion and the
section 1619B continued i while working program.
Again, we'll go more in detail later on these.
Next slide.
First, I'm going to talk about the earned income exclusion.
Now, this is the way Social Security does its computations on when people receive income.
Social Security applies a $20 general income exclusion to any income that you might receive.
If you do not receive any unearned income it is then subtracted from your earnings.
Social Security does not count the first $65 of your earnings a month plus we take out
one half of the remaining earnings and so the amount that remains will give us your
SSI cash benefit, but you always end up with more money by working.
I always tell people that it is always in your best interests to work while you're on
SSI because you're always going to end up having more money, always.
When we go to the next slide, you'll be able to see how that works.
Here is an example of the supplemental Social Security income calculation.
You have the earned income exclusion and this is what we're going through now You start
with your gross earnings, let's say you earned $1,085 in a given month.
What we would do is subtract SSI $20 general income exclusion from that amount and come
up with $1,065.
Then, we would subtract the earned income exclusion which would be the $65, which would
bring you down to $1,000.
Then, we divide that by two, half the remaining earnings and then when we divide it in two,
we end up with $500 and so your total accountable earned income is $500.
When we calculate the total income, you know like I said before, your maximum supplemental
Social Security income that you can receive is $735.
When we subtract that $500 from that $735, you end up with a new amount for your supplemental
security income for your SSI at $235, so you add your $235 plus the $1,085 you got in your
gross earnings, then you end up having $1,320 of total income.
Now, when I ask people which would they rather have, the $735 or the $1,320, they always
choose the latter.
They always choose the $1,320 and that's what the earned income exclusion can do for you.
Now, Debbie is going to tell you about the student earned income exclusion.
>> Debbie, while you're getting ready to do that we did have a problem and for some reason
we're going through the slides in a way that is not matching up the way you guys are speaking
so I am going to give Brittany a minute to get you back to the slide that you will be
starting on and can you please confirm the slide that you will be starting on?
>> Number 27.
>> Thank you very much so we are going to get you back to-
>> Okay and yeah, 27.
I'm having computer problems.
I have my screens and things but right now, I can't see yours but I'm working on it.
>> Okay that's great.
>> We're all having technical trouble here but I do have the screens in front of me so
I'm good.
>> Great, yeah and I apologize to everybody on the call as well.
For some reason, the slides just started moving rapidly by themselves so we are fixing that.
We appreciate that everybody is paying attention and letting us know that the slides aren't
matching up so we apologize for that and just give us a second please to catch up and I
thank you very much.
All right, and it looks like we are on slide 27, student earned income exclusion.
>> Okay well very good then, thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Sure, I have to say that of all of the SSI work incentives, the student earned income
exclusion is absolutely one of my favorites.
This work incentive is exclusive to SSI beneficiaries who are students and under the age of 22 regularly
attending school.
It allows eligible students to work and receive critical job experience while maintaining
their foundation of the SSI benefit.
If you look at it, it indicates that Social Security will discount or exclude up to $1,790
a month of earned income when calculating your SSI payment.
We'll look on the next screen in a second to see how that math goes, but if you remember
from what John was speaking about with the $20 general exclusion and the $65 wage exclusion,
this would actually exclude $1,790 per month so it really allows you while you still are
in school and you're still learning, to take on that job or get that special job experience,
work an internship through the summer or whatever you have available to you, and maintain those
earnings and get to keep those earnings while still maintaining those SSI benefits to maintain
the food, clothing, and shelter that they're usually used for.
Now, on the next slide, slide 28, you'll see a calculation similar to the calculation we
used on the other general work incentives exclusion.
This shows the same $1,085 in gross wages but because we're able to subtract off that
entire $1,085 in student earned income exclusion, the total countable earnings are zero so you'll
receive the $1,085 in wages plus the $735 full SSI benefit.
So, it allows you to have $1,820 in income instead of just the SSI benefits so it's a
really, really great program.
I do want to note that once you have used that maximum of the $7,200 for the calendar
year, we then will automatically allow the general and earned income exclusions to kick
in so that you will always be money ahead from working and receiving your wages as well
as an SSI benefit so it's not like you're limited to $7,200 per year and then there's
nothing there for you.
Okay, if we can go on to slide number 29, the Medicaid while working.
The question that we had earlier asked whether or not it was true that you had to have one
dollar in an SSI benefit in order to receive the Medicaid automatically.
Now, there are many states in the country and there's a slide two or three down the
road that will go over the exclusions to that rule, that do say that if you are receiving
at least one dollar in SSI the state will automatically accept that disability determination
and the financial eligibility because their financial eligibility requirements for the
Medicaid are the same that we use at Social Security for SSI.
And so, it does allow then for us to be using that.
They will use that in order to provide you with that Medicaid automatically.
But there are other ways to obtain the Medicaid and one of them is Medicaid While Working
or we call section 1619B.
Now, the section 1619B is an important way to maintain that health insurance benefit
while you are returning to work.
This allows you to return to work and not have to worry about what's going to happen
to your Medicaid.
Even if your work is so successful that your earnings either alone or in a combination
with your other income becomes too high for you to be eligible for an SSI cash benefit,
the 1619B provisions allow you to still be able to keep your Medicaid coverage.
Now, on that slide you'll note a caveat there where it says if your SSI benefits stop due
to excess resources or for a reason other than wages, the Medicaid may be stopped.
The 1619B provisions are strictly for those who lose their SSI cash benefit because they
are now working and making too much money to be eligible for that.
Now, if we can go and continue on with that on the next slide, slide 30, we want to go
through some of the ways to qualify for the 1619B benefit.
You would had to have been eligible for an SSI cash benefit for at least one month before
going into non-pay status because of work.
You would have had to have been eligible for a cash payment except for the earnings, still
be found to have a disability per our rules, and still meet all the other eligibility rules
for SSI including the resource test.
They will also certify with you that you need the Medicaid in order to work and that your
gross income that you receive from that work would be insufficient to replace your SSI
and your medical expenses that were normally covered by Medicaid or any other publically
funded program and your earnings are under a very specific threshold level.
Now, those levels are very high but they do vary from state to state.
if you go to Social Security's website, which is www.socialsecurity.gov you can find a list
of the thresholds for each state.
Now, Social Security will still conduct periodic reviews to ensure that you continue to meet
all of the eligibility requirements for SSI other than your earnings so it's very important
that you keep those appointments with Social Security so that they can confirm and certify
that you're still eligible so that links up to the local state determination branch so
that we can keep that Medicaid coverage under the 1619B provision.
If we can go to the next slide, I mentioned that there are a few states that don't have
that if you're getting SSI you automatically get the Medicaid.
There are some states that have special rules that vary slightly.
Sometimes there are more restrictive rules than what SSI puts into place and they choose
to have their own eligibility requirement for Medicaid.
Those states are listed on this slide, Connecticut, Minnesota, Hawaii, Missouri, Oklahoma, Illinois,
New Hampshire, Virginia and North Dakota.
Now, the 1619B eligibility is nationwide but in order to be eligible for 1619B, you would
have had to have been eligible for Medicaid prior to your earnings suspending your cash
benefit for SSI so if you happen to be on this call and you're in one of those states,
certainly you'll want to contact your local Medicaid office to see what special information
or provisions you need to be eligible for to insure that you're eligible for the Medicaid.
I know locally in the state of Ohio where I'm from, they were on this list until a year
ago and the difference they had was that they only had a $1,500 resource limit instead of
$2,000.
Now, they changed that a year ago so that they're now compatible with the SSI requirements
but it could be something similar in one of those states.
On the next slide, slide 32, I want to talk about another way that you can get the Medicaid
and this is a fabulous work incentive that actually was provided for in the Ticket to
Work legislation.
It's called Medicaid buy in.
Now, with Medicaid buy in, it's an opportunity to purchase through a premium, an insurance
premium, the Medicaid coverage if you are disabled and are no longer entitled to free
Medicaid because you've returned to work.
You may qualify if you meet the definition of disability under Social Security Act and
would be eligible for SSI or even SSDI benefits with Social Security disability benefits if
it were not for your earnings.
Even if you are not an SSI recipient, you may still be eligible if you are disabled.
You will need to contact your local state Medicaid office or Medicare, which we'll go
over in just a second, to determine what that looks like for you in your state but primarily
what it means is that even if you're not eligible for the 1619B or maybe you were receiving
the Social Security disability insurance but you're receiving or eligible for disability
benefits under Social Security disability rules and you return to work, you may be able
even if you're not eligible for the free Medicaid, to contact your local Medicaid office and
purchase that Medicaid coverage through a premium which they calculate.
Now, if we go to slide number 33, to find the Medicaid or medical assistance office
in your state, you can contact Medicare at 1-800-MEDICARE or 1-800-633-4227, or the tty
number of 1-877-486-2048 following the prompts and you will be transferred to a representative
who will be able to then let you know who in your state you would contact to determine
whether or not Medicaid buy in is available in your state and what the rules are so now
I'm going to turn it back over to John for him to talk about the work incentives for
people who receive both Social Security and SSI.
>> Yes, the Social Security disability insurance program or SSDI program and the SSI supplemental
security income programs are different.
They're some work incentives that are common within both of them.
Let's go to slide 35.
Now, common work incentives for persons who receive both supplemental security income
and Social Security disability insurance are impairment related [inaudible], plan to achieve
self-support, and something we call extradited reinstatement.
Let's go to slide 36 now.
Now, with extradited reinstatement, if your benefits stop because of work and then you
stop working or earning less than the $1,170 that we call substantial gainful activity,
then you can get back on benefits without having to file all over again.
Extradited reinstatement offers a fast track to benefit reinstatement and that's again,
if you worked off of benefits then the reinstatement request within five year after your benefits
stop so if you're not working or if you're working under that $1,170 amount and then
you have to have the same or related disability.
We'll go back and do a medical review on you to make sure that you have that disability
but you start receiving the benefits as soon as you tell us.
Let's go to slide 37.
Now, while Social Security reviews your benefits reinstatement request, you're going to be
eligible to receive at least up to six months of you Social Security benefits until we determine
that you're no longer disabled.
That's what we do.
When you come into the office and you say I want to get my checks put back on because
my wages are below $1,170 or I've stopped working, then we'll start you on getting six
months of your payment of benefits while we review whether you have the same disability
or not.
You may also be eligible for Medicare or Medicaid during this period.
Let's go to slide 38.
Now, impairment related work expenses.
An impairment related work expense is an item or service directly related to help you to
work but it must be [inaudible] your payment and paid out of pocket.
The best way I've ever heard this explained is that if you have an expense in order to
work because of your disability and without it you'll be unable to work, it's an impairment
related work expense.
It's based on your disability and you have to be coming out of your pocket for it.
If that is the case, and there has to be a reasonable cost.
If that is the case, then we will not take what you're coming out of your pocket for
against your wages.
Let's say you were making $1,000 a month and you had to pay $200 out of your pocket for
a special medication in order to work and you needed it in order to work, then we would
subtract the $200 from the $1,000 that you made and only look at $800 instead of that
$1,000 so ultimately it works that if you have to come out of your pocket for something
in order to work because of your disability, we won't count that amount when we are looking
at the total amount of your wages.
We won't count it against you.
Let's go to slide 39.
Impairment related work expenses allows you to keep more of your SSI cash benefit when
you're working like when you're paying for certain expenses and you can get up to half
an amount back in your SSI cash benefit.
Now, examples of impairment related working expenses can be like I said, prescription
medication, it can be job coaching, it can be some transportation expenses, it can be
some medical devices.
Anything that you need, that you have an expense that you need because of your disability in
order to work and without it you'll be unable to work.
That is an impairment related work expense.
Let's go to page 40 and have Debbie talk about plans for achieving self-support.
>> Thanks John.
Plan for achieving self-support is a wonderful program that allows you to set aside income
or assets- Income or asserts that would, hold on just one second here.
>> Little bit of feedback so please make sure if you're not speaking you are on mute.
Thank you.
The plan for achieving self-support or the PASS plan, is a program that allows you to
set aside income or assets other than your SSI benefits for a specific period of time
so that you may pursue a work goal while drawing that SSI benefit.
When Social Security calculates your SSI payment amount, they will not count the income or
asset that you set aside under the PASS plan.
A couple of examples of things that could be set aside for the PASS plan would either
be Social Security disability insurance benefits, wages, or money in a bank account that we
want to use towards pursuing your vocational goa.
If we go to slide 41, the PASS plan can help you pay for services or items that you need
in order to achieve that vocational goal.
That goal can be working in a specific field or to be self-employed.
The list of services or items that you need are tailored to your work goal and what you
need in order to be successful in returning to work.
This can include things like tuition, books, uniforms for the new job, startup costs for
that self-employment business.
Again, it's very specific and very tailored and personal to what you would like to do
and what expenses you will have in helping you to achieve that vocational goal.
Now, if we can look on slide 42, the plan for achieving self-support is an application
process.
The employment network that you choose or your state vocational rehabilitation agency
as well as any social worker or benefits counselor can help you to set up that PASS plan and
help you get all the documentation together so that you can submit that plan to Social
Security.
The plan has to be in writing and designed specifically for you.
It needs to identify a very specific work goal that you are capable of achieving and
it will include a specific timeframe for how long it will take you to reach that vocational
goal.
If you go to slide 43, the PASS plan also needs to show what income you receive other
than the SSI that you will be setting aside for that goal and how that income will be
used to reach your goal, and be approved and reviewed periodically from Social Security.
I think to illustrate this better, I'd like to give a really quick example of a PASS plan
that was very successful and I think it will help illustrate what we're talking about when
we're talking about goals and setting things aside.
I had an example of a young man who was receiving SSI benefits, who was working part time as
a pizza delivery person.
He started working with his state vocational rehabilitation counselor because he wanted
to take classes to become an auto mechanic.
He knew that if he became an auto mechanic that would provide him with enough income
that he would be able to work himself off of the SSI benefit and be able to achieve
a goal.
It was something that he enjoyed to do so it was positive from that respect but it was
also something he knew that he could do and would provide him with a much better income
than his SSI check.
The state vocational rehabilitation agency paid for his classes for him to study to be
the auto mechanic.
He used the countable wages from his part time job as a pizza delivery man and instead
of that lowering his SSI so that he received part of it, we used that to pay for the other
things other than the tuition he needed in order to achieve that goal.
For him, that happened to be the gas money to get him to and from the classes and the
tools that he needed through the classes and that he would need at the end to get that
job.
Because he set aside that countable income into the PASS plan, his SSI benefits were
not reduced because of his wages and upon graduation from these classes he became a
full time auto mechanic, earning so much money that his SSI cash benefit ended.
You can see this was very tailored just for him, his personal situation, and his personal
need, something that we do with everyone who applies for the PASS plan so that we make
sure that you get the help and assistance that you need to achieve your vocational goal.
John, would you like to start tying all this together.
>> Debbie?
>> I'm sorry, yes?
>> Debbie, hi.
>> Hi.
>> This is Nancy, hi this is Nancy.
Wonderful story of the gentleman becoming an auto mechanic and working his way off benefits.
Thank you for that.
Before we move into talking about the ticket, we did have several questions that have come
in for both of you regarding some of the SSI work incentives so I would just like to ask
you a few of those questions now.
>> Sure.
>> Great and you guys can simply tag team with one another in terms of answering questions
and the first one is, you mentioned 1619B.How does Social Security verify if a person needs
Medicaid in order to work?
>> There is a question when you're reporting your wages to Social Security and Social Security
recognizes that you are going to be in a situation where your cash SSI benefit will suspend to
zero or reduce to zero because of your wages.
They're going to ask you some questions.
There are three questions that they'll ask.
One of them is have you used Medicaid in the last 12 months or do you expect that you're
going to need it in the next 12 months and then there are other questions such as if
you did not have your Medicaid would you be able to meet your medical goals and still
have your household living expenses covered with your new wages and since most people
would normally say even if I haven't used it in the last year I might in the next 12
months, and if I had to pay for catastrophic health insurance expense out of my own pocket
I wouldn't be able to do it with my earnings, the answers to the question normally leads
the person at the Social Security office to code the computer system so that we automatically
will key in and answer that once we verify that information with you.
The system automatically then appropriates the 1619B status for the person.
>> Okay wonderful.
John, anything else?
>> No, I think she told it all.
Ultimately, we call those questions the Medicaid use questions.
It's a matter of whether there's a need for the use of Medicaid when it gets to zero dollars
in SSI.
>> All right great, thank you.
And then another question that we have is how long can I work before my SSI benefits
stop?
>> Before they get to zero dollars?
You can work and earn, because of the way we deal with the earned income exclusion you
can work and earn up to $1,640 a month and that's when you get to zero dollars in your
supplemental security income.
But again, with 1618B, you still would be eligible for Medicaid in that instance in
most states.
Using the state of Illinois for example, as one of the states where the only difference
that we have with Medicaid here is that when you file for SSI and you become eligible for
SSI, you still will be eligible for free Medicaid in the state of Illinois.
You just will have to go to the Public Aid Office in order to get the Medicaid card,
that's the only difference.
In most states, once you get to the point of zero dollars in SSI, and we ask those questions,
those Medicaid use questions, you're still going to be eligible for your Medicaid but
that amount is $1,640 a month.
>> Okay, $1,640 thank you.
Debbie anything else for that?
>> No, we're good.
>> So John, when you were talking about Medicaid we had somebody ask if they need a replacement
Medicaid card can they do that online through the Social Security website?
>> No that's not something we deal with specifically at Social Security.
See, Medicaid is a program even though it's federally funded it's administered by each
state so you have to go to your state office that deals with Medicaid in order to get a
replacement Medicaid card.
>> That's great to know because we do have people on nationally so it's good to know
that for Medicaid cards they do have to go through their state and not the federal Social
Security website.
Thank you.
And then we have another question which is, there seems to be a lot you can do online
like opening up your SSA MySSA account.
Could you repeat whether or not you can verify the type of benefit you're receiving online?
>> Yes, actually you can get a benefit statement, a statement of your benefits and it will tell
you specifically what type of benefit you're receiving and you can also get your earnings
record from online as well.
>> Okay great, thank you and then, going back to we had a few questions come in earlier
that I couldn't get to about the student earned income exclusion and the person wants to know
if they want to use the student earned income exclusion do they have to ask Social Security
first, get permission to use it?
>> No, but they will need to make sure that Social Security is aware that they are a student.
It's pretty self-explanatory if the individual student is under age 18 and we can assume
that they're still in high school but laws vary from state to state on how long you can
stay in the school system before you age out so you could have an individual who is 20
or 21.
You're going to need to remind that employee when you report that you started working that
you are a student.
They may require verification because there are certain requirements of how many hours
you have to work or go to school each week to be considered a student, to be eligible
for this, so they may want to verify how many hours you're going or if you're going to a
local school.
For grades seven through twelve it's at least 12 hours a week.
In a college or university it's at least eight hours a week or a special training course
like maybe through a vocational service or something like that it's at least 12 hours
a week, or 15 if it involves shop practice.
But then, there are some additional exceptions if you cannot go that often a week because
of your health conditions or if you're homeschooled there are special rules for that as well.
It's not that you have to ask permission to use it, you're just going to need to make
sure that the SSI claims representative is aware of the fact that you are a student and
you meet the criteria so that they will know that this is something that again, we need
to code it so the computer doesn't know it automatically.
We will need to verify that you're a student so you make sure you get that eligibility
and it's something that if for some reason it's not caught and you realize hey, I thought
I was supposed to be getting this student earned income exclusion and they did the general
exclusion instead, I don't think I got enough in the check, it's something that we can go
back and fix so it's not like you're out the money.
You could recontact Social Security, we can verify the student status, we can annotate
that status and then pay back any additional money to you that we may not have, not realizing
that you were a student.
>> Great information Debbie, thank you.
That leads to a question of who would they contact?
You and John are both AWIC's.
Maybe you could explain a little bit about what an AWIC does and if somebody does have
an issue like you just mentioned where their check is not what they expected it to be,
is it an AWIC that they get in touch with, an area work incentive coordinator or someone
else?
>> I can answer that question.
Typically we have a work incentive liaison in each and every office, every Social Security
office in the nation.
And it's we AWICs that coordinate those folks in each office and most of those offices those
work incentive liaisons are experts and they know most if not all of the different possibilities
of how work incentives might be able to help an individual when they start working.
We AWICs, what we do is technically coordinate and make sure that everybody has all the training
that they need and make sure that the work incentive liaisons and the actual staff in
those offices know about work incentives and can help individuals who want to work.
Ultimately, we're like the point people within the agency in order to try to help people
with disabilities to work but the work incentive liaisons in the offices are the people within
those offices to make sure that everybody in their office is trained in work incentives
and how that work affects people's individual disability benefits.
The AWIC also is the person that is the point individual for the, like me I'm in the Chicago
Metropolitan Northern Indiana area so everyone in the Chicago Metropolitan Northern Indiana
area that tries to help people with disabilities to work can come to me when dealing with Social
Security and I assist those individuals when they're dealing with Social Security issues
and the like.
I represent the agency when it comes to trying to help other organizations that help people
with disabilities to work.
In a nutshell, that's what an AWIC does but in each office you have a work incentive liaison
that's in each of those office that teaches the staff and keeps them apprised as what's
going on in terms of work incentives and what changes are made if there are any.
>> All right wonderful, thank you very much John.
We have several question that have come in regarding IRWE, impairment related work expenses.
The first question is what do I tell Social Security when I want to use an IRWE?
>> You basically tell us that you have an expense because in your disability that you're
coming out of your pocket for in order to work and if you do what we're going to request
from you is a receipt of your actually paying for that item or paying for that service in
order to work and we'll make a determination of whether you have to use it without your
disability.
They always have to be disability related but we're making sure [inaudible] whether
it's as a result of your disability and you need it in order to work and if we take that
receipt and we make that determination we use the impairment related work expense and
subtract it from your overall wages.
>> Great so then a followup question, does that mean that I need to start working before
I apply to use an IRWE?
>> You have to have wages in order to subtract the expense so once you start working and
you start getting your paycheck, then if you have to come out of your pocket in order to
do that work because of your disability that's when you start telling us hey, I have an impairment
related work expense that I need to come out of my pocket for.
When you're looking at these wages, this needs to be subtracted from it.
>> Great and I'm so glad that you mentioned that because we had a question about how can
I report my wages?
>> Now, there are many ways in which to report your wages especially if you're receiving
supplemental security income.
Most offices in the nation have a monthly wage reporting system especially when it comes
to supplemental security income, especially when it comes to SSI and so you can expense
many office issues and go into the office and they'll give you a bunch of return envelopes
and then you can work and then at the end of each month you can send in the paystubs
and then the Social Security worker will take and put that information into our system and
send you your receipt and the paystubs back.
Now, with SSI also there is a telephone reporting system that you can use where you can dial
the telephone and report at the end of each month how much basically reading from your
paystub, how much money you made from that month.
We have the same thing, we have the application that can be put on any iPhone or any android
device called the SSI reporting application that you can do the same.
You can report your wages that way if you're receiving SSI and then there's the standard
way that people do it and they come to the office at the end of the month and they bring
in their paystubs and we give them receipts.
At every office though, once you report your pay stubs over to us, we are required to give
you a receipt for that in case by chance we might miss making an input to the system and
you potentially might get an overpayment that you really didn't deserve you can use that
receipt in order to have use waive that over pay.
>> Great information thank you.
One more question and then we'll move back into our program and that is can I use the
phone reporting like you just mentioned John, can I do that if I'm using a work incentive
such as an IRWE?
>> You want to answer that Debbie or no, you want me to do it?
>> No, I can answer it because I've actually reported people's wages through the mobile
app myself.
The mobile app is a fabulous app to use and it will report the wages however, whether
you use the phone wage reporting system or the mobile app wage reporting system, there
is no way to report your impairment related work expenses through that app so what I would
suggest if an individual has an impairment related work expense that they, you can still
put the wages in through the app so that we start the process and know how much potentially
your benefit is going to be offset because of your wages but you will separately have
to take a photocopy of those actual receipts verifying what you spent in those impairment
related work expenses and submit that to your local SSI claims representative so that they
can manually key those in.
That is not something that as of yet is available to do either through the mobile app or the
phone app probably because we have to verify that it is a relatable impairment related
work expense that we can deduct and then we manually key that in.
>> Great information thank you and I'm sure many people on the line are really happy to
hear more about the app as well, so thank you very much for that Debbie.
>> Personally, I find that the mobile app is a lot easier to use than the telephone
because the telephone is a voice recognition and sometimes even if you speak very clearly
it gets your name all buggered up whereas if you do it by the mobile app you type it
in and hit enter and there's no problem in understanding it at all.
>> Wonderful and I did say that was going to be the last question but we've got such
great questions coming in.
I know we gave some examples before but can you give a few more examples of what can be
used as an IRWE?
>> One of the examples is like I said, it could be a job coach or something because
of your disability you need to use it, you need to have a job coach in order to be able
to go through the process of doing your particular job, if he has to come out of your pocket
for that, that can be an impairment related work expense.
If you have to modify your car in order to get back and forth to work and it's because
otherwise you couldn't get to work by any other means because of your disability then
that could be an impairment related work expense.
An impairment related work expense can be a modification to your house that you have
to do in order to get in and out of your house, an expense you would need because of your
disability to get out of the house to go to work.
Another impairment related work expense could be a personal attendant.
You might need to have someone who was literally on a pass who had multiple sclerosis and can
only move his hand and he was smart though, he ended up becoming a lawyer and he ended
up becoming a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency.
He ended up needing to have a personal attendant in order to come to work to try to help him
eat and have lunch and so he needed that because of his disability and we included that as
an impairment related work expense.
>> Another one that's really overlooked a lot are service animals.
>> Right.
>> Whether it's for the blind or somebody who needs it for PTSD or they use them for
epilepsy or seizures, the bet bills, the food bills, the grooming bills, the chew toys,
anything you need to take care of that service animal so that they can take care of you would
be considered an impairment related work expense.
>> Wonderful, great information, thank you.
I think we're going to see a little uptick maybe in people applying to use some IRWE's
so thank you very much and thank you for entertaining all of those questions and thank you to the
audience for some really great questions.
So now let's go back to our program and I believe John that we'll be turning it over
to you on slide 44.
>> Okay now we're getting ready to go to the Ticket to Work program, how you can tie all
this together and deal with what we call the ticket.
If you just think about the ticket as a voucher that you have that you can give over to agency
and they can help you to be able to try to do the things that you need to do and get
the things you need to get in order to get a job.
Only you can decide if you want to work.
It's a choice, you don't have to use a ticket.
Everyone whose receiving benefits between the ages of 18 and 64 is ticket eligible regardless
of supplemental Social Security income or Social Security disability insurance.
Now, you have to understand how working may affect your Social Security disability benefits.
The effects of how work affects your benefits is still going to remain the same by using
the ticket and you can take advantage of all the work incentives that we're talking about
today when it comes to SSI and then later on next month when we talk about Social Security
disability insurance we're talking about the Social Security disability insurance benefit
work incentives at that point but you can take advantage of all those things but ultimately
when you're using the ticket, all those things remain the same.
The difference with the ticket is that you're using this ticket, this voucher, to give over
to an employment network or vocational rehabilitation agency and if they have that ticket and they're
going to try to help you as much as possible in order to try to do the things and have
the things that you need in order to get a job.
If they get you a job, we end up paying them for getting you a job ultimately, that's what
the ticket is all about.
They can try to help you try to secure a job such as try to help you do your resume, they
can help give you training and there are different employment networks that do different things
and so that's why it behooves you in order to try to call the case work phone number
and we'll give you that number later on in this program but it behooves you if you want
to use the ticket to call that number and get a listing of the employment networks that
are in your area.
Now, working might have benefits including increasing your income, giving you routine,
we're on slide 46 now.
I'm sorry, I'm speeding up here.
Now, you can increase your income, you can basically develop a routine that's a personal
routine.
It's a nice place to meet new people and you can learn new skills but of course, when you
work you become financially independent.
Now, let's go to slide 47 now-
>> Okay now slide 47 is who can help you achieve your work goal?
The Ticket to Work program offers you a choice of service providers.
As I said, you can have an employment network that can help you achieve the goal that you're
trying to achieve.
There are also workforce employment networks where they become sometimes called one stops
where you can go into one stops and you can use their facilities and be able to search
through jobs and get all sorts of services that might be able to help you get a job.
There's a state vocational rehabilitation agency in every state and they might be able
to help you keep yourself get enough things that you need in order to help you get the
job that you are potentially able to do and potentially want.
Then there's a work incentive planning and assistance project.
In every service area, in every area there's a work incentives planning assistance so WIPA
project where they can do benefit analysis for you.
They can literally look at what you're getting in terms of all your types of benefits you
might be getting, your Social Security benefits, your SSI benefits, your food stamps, your
Medicare/Medicaid, anything VA whatever, anything you potentially might be getting as a result
of your disability they can tell you how your work is going to affect your benefits, an
analysis of how work is going to affect your benefits once you start working.
They can give you a printout of what is going to particularly happen so you won't have to
come to Social Security and won't have to start working without knowing what's going
to happen.
Now, again, the WIPAs are in each and every area.
They're where everyone lives.
All you have to do is go in and type in WIPA and your geographical area and it will give
you the WIPA work incentive planning assistance folks that are in your area.
Now, there's a protection and advocacy for beneficiaries of Social Security called PAVS
organizations.
There are folks there, lawyers to try and help you deal with any discrimination issues
that you might encounter as a result of your disability and trying to go to work and they're
free as well.
There's a PAVS agency, a protection and advocacy agency for every state.
You can look up your state and look up the PAVS organization in your state and if you
have any issue that's involving any type of discrimination or any type of issue involving
working and having some sort of discrimination against you, you can contact the PAVS organization.
Let's go to slide 48.
Okay, what is an employment network?
I kind of got into this a little bit more, an employment network is a private or public
organization that contracts with us, with the Social Security Administration that will
try those free employment services that people who are ticket eligible and the services for
career planning, job leads or job placement, ongoing employment support and sometimes benefits
counseling.
Some of them do help you to do your resume, some of them might help you to get your clothing
that you need in order to get a particular job.
It depends on the employment network.
That's why it is important for you to call that choose work number and try to get a listing
of what the employment network does around you and you have to basically shop for the
one that's the right fit for you.
One employment network may work for one individual but may not work for another individual but
you both have to agree to work with each other and the individual work plan is set up for
you so that you can try to achieve the goal of ultimately getting the job that benefits
both you and the employment network.
Let's go to slide 49.
Now, what is vocational rehabilitation agency?
There are agencies that are designed to serve the beneficiaries and the training of other
services that need to work.
Sometimes it includes training that can help you go to school sometimes, they can help
you get whatever rehabilitation that you might need in order to upgrade your skills.
They might be able to do career counseling and giving placement assistance and sometimes
they do benefit counseling as well.
Some agencies now, if you're blind or visually impaired you might have a separate vocational
rehabilitation agency in your state that helps you but by and large the vocational rehabilitation
agencies are there and again, all this is free, to help you try to get the things you
need in order to work and they're run by the state.
Let's go to slide 50.
When you're taking the next step, you're gathering the information and resources that you need
in order to try to become employed and it takes a lot of the information that Debbie
and I have given you or getting a lot of information that you might be able to get from the ticket
helpline and the like or you can contact your local Social Security office and try to figure
out what's going to work for you, or contact your work incentive planning assistance organization.
There's a lot of tools out there for you to use in order to try and put together, in order
to try and help you to work if that's what you want to do and Ticket to Work and work
incentives can help you make that journey a very smooth one.
Now, let's go to slide 51.
How do you get started?
To take advantage of the resources that we talked about today, we're here to help you
succeed in reaching those work goals.
You can call the Ticket to Work helpline and the phone number is 1-866-968-7842.
Again, that's 1-866-968-7842.
The TTY number is 1-866-833-2967 again the TTY number is 1-866-833-2967 or you can visit
us at www.ssa.gov/work.
Next slide and I'm going to give this over to Nancy.
>> Great thank you very, very much John.
Before we get into resources we've got a few minutes and we have some question that came
in.
One of the questions was where can I find the names or the contact information for employment
networks that serve me?
>> Typically, you can call the Ticket to Work helpline on the 1-866-968-7842 and they can
connect you to get the listings of the networks that are with you or you can go to the Choose
Work website and let me give you that website.
It's www.choosework.ssa.gov and they will be able to connect you to what employment
networks might be in your particular area.
>> Wonderful, thank you very much.
All right, I'm going to move on with a little of some of our resources and then hopefully
as I get towards the end we will be able to fit in a couple more questions.
The first resource that I would like to discuss is the 2017 Red Book.
The Red Book is a general resource, reference resource about employment related programs
of Social Security.
I find it to be a wonderful document myself and refer to it often so for anybody interested
in more information, you can visit www.ssa.gov,redbook.
Again, that's www.ssa.gov,redbook.
You can download it or sometimes it is available to be shipped to you as well.
Another resource that I would like to remind people about is paying your wages.
People need to understand that just getting a paystub does not mean that Social Security
knows that you are working.
It is very important to report wages and to learn more about what you need to report,
how to report your wages, and tips for preventing and managing over payments.
You can actually visit one of our archives webinars where we talked about that and to
watch our archives webinars you can go to http:a\bit.lyeoverpaymentwise and that will
give you good information on avoiding overpayments and the importance of reporting your wages.
Another good resource is to subscribe to the Choose Work blog.
You can learn more by looking at our blogs about Ticket to Work, about work incentives,
job search tips, and much more.
You can sign up for the Choose Work blogs and updates by going to http: for Choose Work.
So, as we're winding down, we're going to be able to get to a couple more questions
but I do want to remind everyone that next month we will be having part two of this webinar
series where we will be focusing on Social Security disability insurance, SSDI and that
will be September 27 at 3:00PM Eastern Standard Time and to register, you can go online at
choosework.ssa.govrwise or you can call 1-866-968-7842, or for TTY users 1-866-833-2967.
I believe we can fit in maybe one more question.
One of the question that I saw that came in that was very interesting is there are a lot
of government programs and I want to see whether or not the ticket program works for me.
Are there any success stories posted on the Choose Work website?
>> That's a really good question.
I believe that there are some success stories on there and I believe the socialsecurity.gov
website under work incentives has a couple of success stories.
It should, we've submitted them in the past but there are many out there, too numerous
to name.
It's one of the things that Iove about the Ticket to Work.
Even with 38 years in, I've done ticket since its inception 17 years ago and it has really
helped provide additional choices for people to find the way to make themselves successful
and it's really great.
>> Yeah, there are many places across the country where employment networks sort of
band together and they exchange job leads.
I think Minnesota is one of them and what they do ultimately is try to find someone
to try and fit a particular job leads they might get and it kind of works out that way.
There are a number of organization that may not be employment networks that kind of work
with ticket agencies that have people with tickets that help them to try to work.
Even the agency ourselves, even Social Security has, once we have job opportunities that's
available to the public, we'll contact many of the disability organizations and let them
know that we have those jobs available and if they have anyone that might meet our needs,
then they've been filled with ticket holders.
There are too many numerous success stories with ticket to even potentially try to go
over right now but just suffice it to say that depending on the situation and what the
right fit, it works for very many people.
>> Wonderful, thank you very much.
Great to hear that there are so many out there that it's too long of a process to talk about.
Thank you both very much.
I know we have some more questions but I do need to finish up our program and I know we're
pretty much getting close to being out of time so let me just move on real quickly and
remind people that you can call the Ticket to Work helpline at 866-968-7842 or for TTY
users 866-833-2967.
You can also visit www.ssa.gov7work and please connect with us.
You can like us on Facebook by going to www.facebook.com You can also follow us on Twitter by going
to www.twitter.commchooseworkssa.
You can also watch Ticket to Work videos on YouTube by going
to http: work.
And lastly, you can follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticket-to-work.
And lastly, we very much value your opinion.
Please tell us what you think and take our webinar survey.
A link will pop up after this webinar or you can also visit choosework.ssa.gov/surveys/wise.
I want to take a moment again to thank our speakers Debbie Schwartz and John Marshall.
Thank you both very much and to our audience, thank you for your great questions and we
look forward to talking with you next month.
Bye-bye.
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