03‑23‑23
2:30 p.m./NDI
CART Disclaimer:  This rough edit transcript, which may contain missing, misspelled or paraphrased words, is only provided for your immediate review and is not certified as verbatim and is not to be cited in any way.
Welcome!
Welcome!
Welcome!
>> Recording in progress.
>> Hello everyone!  And welcome to today's training on social security work incentives:  A message of hope for social security beneficiaries.  Today's training will be led by Kevin Nickerson of the American Dream Employment Network.  Next slide, please.  The audio for today's meeting can be accessed by using computer audio or by calling in by phone.  If you select computer audio please make sure your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in.
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Some housekeeping tips.  The PowerPoint will not be available for distribution however a recording of this webinar will be available for viewing sat www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org slash ADEN/participant‑resources.  Please use the chatbox to send questions to Mary Lynn ReVoir.  If you're listening by phone email questions to info@americandream.org.  Please use the chatbox to send a message to the host or email if you have problems.  Kevin Nickerson is our presenter today so please do not message him through the chattel be unable to answer.
And with that I will send it over to Mary Lynn.
>> Well thank you Michelle and again thanks to everyone who joined us today.  We're glad that you would take time out of your busy schedule to join in informative webinar.  Our agenda today is who is the American Dream Employment Network followed by comparing the social security administration programs then we'll have an overview of SSDI benefits and the work related work incentives.  How to get help in the return to work and then an overview of SSI benefits and work incentives.
Next slide, please.
The American Dream Employment Network is an administrative EN, employment network operating under the social security Ticket to Work program.  We're a consortium of service providers assisting individuals with disabilities who are currently receiving social security disability benefits and want to return to employment origin working for the first time.
ADEN began in 2015 and is currently helping hundreds of social security disability beneficiaries achieve their own version of the American dream.
Next slide.  The American Dream Employment Network which again we call short, ADEN is a division of National Disability Institute with a mission that individuals with disabilities should be empowered financially through employment that leads to increased self‑sufficiency.  Visit www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org for more information.  Next slide.
We are here to help.  There's over 13 million beneficiaries in the United States receiving SSI or social security disability insurance benefits.  Those of you who receive those benefits are ticketholders and therefore you are living in poverty and we want to help change that.  Currently we have 1200 individuals who are using their ticket with ADEN today.  But over the years we have supported over 3,000 ticketholders to help support them in their employment goals.  Many beneficiaries are not aware of Ticket to Work or they want to work but have limited options of employment network.  We want you to know there is hope because ADEN is available in all states.
Evident shows that if you have support trying to obtain employment and ongoing support while employed, you are more likely to succeed.  The disability benefits are complex, ADEN has over 70 certified work incentive practitioners within our network to help you understand your benefits and available work incentives.
At this point I want to give you Kevin Nickerson he's an experienced subject matter expert and I'm sure you'll find his information informative today.  Kevin.
>> KEVIN NICKERSON:  Well thanks Mary Lynn and thanks for Michelle's introductions here.  We appreciate each of you that have joined us today.  I'm sure you're here to learn more about the social security programs we're going to talk about.  I thought I would tell you just a little bit about my background.  I have been coaching people through the use of social security work incentives for well over 20 years.  I'm a certified work incentive practitioners and worked under the work incentive planning assistance project and the predecessor to that BPAO or benefits planning assistance and outreach so it's been my pleasure and honor to works with hundreds and thousand thousands of beneficiaries over those years.  What I want to do is start by diving into what you are really here today to learn just a little bit more about the two primary social security disability programs, social security disability insurance or SSDI and supplemental security income.  These are the two primary continues ability programs that social security operates.
Now today's training will not make you experts but I hope to highlight some of the incentives and do what the title says and give our beneficiaries that are on the line today some hope that you can work when you're on benefits and even work your way off benefits in a way that makes sense.  And in a way that won't surprise you if you're working with a certified work incentive practitioner.  So what I want to do today and hope to accomplish is highlight some of the things I think you should know if you're a beneficiary.  And by the way today our focus so on beneficiary.  I know we have professionals here with us today and I appreciate you too because you're helping this audience get back to work but I have a focus on our beneficiaries here today and that's the purpose of this material.  So let's talk about the differences between these two programs then I'm going to tease out some of the work incentives of each.  So at high level SSDI or Title II in the social security act is called the retirement survivors and SSDI portion of that act.  Title 16 on the other hand of the social security acts is for aging blind and disabled individuals.  SSDI and maybe I should get my pointer out.  Give me a second here.  Might be easier.  There we go.  For SSDI you have to have insured status.  According to social security.  What that means is that you've worked and you've paid enough in taxes or credits into the system to have insured status in the case that you become disabled and need this benefit.  So it is an insurance program.  For SSI it's different.  This was created later in policy in the 70's I believe.  And this is really for folks that didn't have the ability maybe ‑‑ maybe they had a disability from birth and didn't have that chance to develop those credits of coverage to get insured status.  So this program is designed for folks who have a disability but don't have that insured status.  For SSDI, because it is an insurance program, there are benefits to the recipient's family.  To the spouse, even to a divorced spouse in some cases, a disabled child can receive benefits and even a disabled child that's a little deceiving because they can even be an adult and receive a benefit from a family member's insured status and also dependents which would be minors.  Now for SSI to contrast again and show you the difference between the two there are no benefits to the recipient's family.  Because this is more of a needs‑based or means‑tested program for the individual.  Now for SSDI there is a 5 month waiting period because it is an insurance program which is typical of a lot of different insurance programs that there is a waiting period.  So once you're found eligible there will be a 5 month waiting period before you would actually get cash benefits.  For SSI there is no waiting period.  It's a needs‑based program so social security understands when you are eligible for this you need the benefit right away.
Now when I say there's no waiting period don't be confused by how long it might be to get a decision on your application for SSI.  That's a different matter.  But once you're found eligible you're not going to have to wait for that benefit.
For SSDI there can be a retroactive payment possibility of up to 12 months prior to application.  Again because it's an insurance program.
It depends on a lot of different things but it's possible to get benefits prior to the application even.
For SSI that won't happen.  You're only going to get paid as of the first day of month following the month of your application.  Here's some more differences between these two programs.  For social security disability insurance, you'll keep coming back to that and this might surprise some folks because not everybody's an expert on this.  There's no resource limit.  So because it's an insurance program and you earned it flew your work history and those credits you paid into the system you don't have to worry if you have resources.  That is not even looked at.  SSI in contrast is a needs‑based or means‑tested program therefore there has to be a resource test for this program.  Unfortunately it's quite low.  The resource test is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 currently for an eligible couple.
I'll talk more about that later.
Now for disability for Medicare there's also a waiting period unfortunately because, well this is kind of ironic because I know when folks get this benefit there are people that have a long term disability so insurance is pretty important.  Isn't it?  But unfortunately there is a 24 month waiting period from the time you are found eligible for your cash benefits.  So not from the date of onset but after the 5 month waiting period when you first starting your cash benefit that's when that 24 month clock starts ticking and you have to wait 24 months to be eligible for Medicare.  For SSI it's not going to be Medicare it's going to be Medicaid and in 2/3 of the states in our country if you're eligible for SSI you're automatically eligible for Medicaid.  You might say well what about the other third of the states.  You can still get Medicaid but you have to apply separately for it.  In 2/3 of the state there's an agreement that if you're eligible for the SSI benefit as I said you're automatically going to get the Medicaid.  Some of those states and the other third have even a more restrictive set of criteria to become eligible for Medicaid so they have a separate eligibility process unfortunately.
Now for SSDI looking at this again, checks are paid, you receive your benefit check one month behind.  So for example if you get a check in April it's really for March.  Okay.  So it's one month behind.  What you actually receive is for the previous month.  Now for SSI checks paid ‑‑ are paid for the month which you received it.  So if you get a check in this month in March that's for March.  It's for that month.
Now sometimes people wonder what benefit they're receiving and they're not completely sure and one of the tests I can help you with is this one because the difference between when the checks are paid helps to sort that out.  For disability insurance, checks are going to be paid on the third of the month or a Wednesday after that based on your birth date.  When I started years ago advising people it would always be on the third but as more people came on to the program social security had to develop another schedule because there were so many people getting this benefit so it was either going to be the third of the month or the Wednesday after that.  If that's when you're getting your benefits you're getting SSDI.  Now for SSI your checks will be paid on the first of the month.  There might be exceptions due to holidays but for the most part if you get your benefit on the first of the month it's SSI.  That's the difference in the distinction between the two.
Okay.
Now what I want to do is talk specifically to the folks here that get social security disability insurance benefits and I hope that distinction of when you get paid will help you if you were unsure what do I gelt to really stay focused on which benefit I'm talking about.  So for folks that get disability insurance I want to talk about work incentives in the next part of the training that are specific to you.  Okay.  So this is specific ‑‑ there's kind of like two boxes you have to have open in your head.  You have to have an SSI box and SSDI box and I will tell you there are some folks that are what we call concurrent beneficiaries and that means you get some SSDI and some SSI so you're going to have to keep both of these rules straight unfortunately.
But right now we're talking just about social security disability insurance.
The first thing that I think is exciting that I want to talk about with you is the trial work period.  The trial work period allows you to do just what it says, to try working again.  If you thought you couldn't work when you got disability insurance, well that's not true.  If you thought the benefit was going to go away as soon as you started working that's not true.  If you're worried about the Medicare going away that's not true either.  So let's talk about trial work period.  You get 9 months of trial work.  You can earn any amount of money and keep your SSDI benefits and your insurance during this period with no concerns.
Now for this year, social security is going to look at the amount of earnings you make each month and for this year if you make more than a thousand $50 in a month they're going to say you used one of your 9 trial work period months.
So if this month I started my first job since getting benefits and I earned whatever, $2,000 let's say, that's more than that $1,050 they would say that's one of your trial work period months now you don't have 9, you have 8.  Now they do not have to be consecutive.  The social security did this purposefully because some folks can have an illness or condition that's periodic.  So you have good times and you have bad times.  So maybe there's a month or two you're able to work then for a few months you can't work.  So I want you to understand this, this is important.  If and when you use your 9 trial work period months within a 60 month rolling window of time, that's when you've used your entire trial work period.
I'll say that again.
If and when you use all 9 trial work period months within a 60 month rolling period of time that would mean you've concluded your trial work period and you will move into the next part of your work incentive package which I will describe in a moment.  In short I want you to understand the purpose of this trial work period.  It's to try working again.  It's to engage in full time work that we hope will lead you to self-sufficiency and off benefits.  If that's what you're able to do.  We know not everybody can do that but if you can this is an opportunity to try that.
With no penalties.
So I hope that's exciting if you never heard of that before.  Let's talk about what happens next.  The next part of your work incentive package the way I look at it anyway is called the extended period of eligibility.  This extended period of eligibility starts the very month after the trial work period ends.  And it will continue for 36 months whether you are working or not.  And end at that 36 month after it starts.
So what is this?  It kind of is what it says.  It's a period to protect your eligibility.  For any month during this period of time this extended period of eligibility where you have countable earnings and I'm going to tell you more later about what countable earnings are versus gross earnings.  When you have count California school earnings that are more than the substantial gainful activity level.  Yes there's a lot of acronyms, that's SGA.  So when you have earnings more than that SGA level and by the way the SGA level for 2023 for somebody who has a disability they qualified for for anything other than blindness is $1,470 a month.  For folks that have a primary disability of blindness the SGA level for this year is $2,460 per month.  They're different SGA rates.  Okay.  So let's talk about this extended period of eligibility again.
And add now to it this SGA rule.  When you earn more than the SGA level during this extended period of eligibility, social security will not pay you for that month your benefit.  Another thing I didn't put in this slide but I want you to know, you either get all of your benefit or none of your benefit depending on where you're at in this work incentive process.  Right?  We don't worry about it in the trial work period but when we're talking about the extended period of eligibility when your earnings are over that SGA level social security will plan to not pay you your benefit that month.
Now that's true but there's always exceptions to the rule.  This is a good exception to the rule that I want to talk about next.  When social security first sees a pattern of earnings where you are making more than that SGA level, they will plan to call that first month of that pattern of earnings where your over the SGA level your cessation month.  Right?  To cease benefits.  And that is what they will plan to do.  However, you get this additional grace period they call it where even though they should cease your benefits for that first month where they should cease your benefits and the two months after that, that's an additional grace period that you get.  So you really get that 9 months that I talked about, the trial work period and then you get 3 more months.
First they're going to give you this grace period.  Let's talk about what happens after that.  So let's assume we're now past too trial work period.  Maybe we're in the extended period of eligibility, maybe we're beyond that but when they establish the grace period and it ends assuming you continue to be gainfully employed that's when your benefits would be suspended.  Okay.  So that means your earnings are more than the SGA level, I'm going to assume for purposes of our training that you're still in that extended period of eligibility and your benefits would be suspended but you're still connected to the program.  You haven't been terminated you're still connected you're just in a suspended status.
Now if your earnings fall below that SGA level while you're in this extended period of eligibility you get your SSDI benefit reinstated and you don't have to reapply again because you were never terminated.  So to summarize this extended period of eligibility provides 36 months where you will be protected from being terminated.  It's another period of time to evaluate your available to eventually leave the benefits roles completely but you still have this sort of safety net under you for this 36 months.  Now you won't keep your cash benefits in months that you're over that SGA level, but you will keep your connection to the program as a beneficiary.
Now some of us are visual learners and some of us are not but I do have in front of us now a chart that I used for many years and that I like to help recap all the things that we talked about in terms of the social security disability insurance work incentive timeline.  So what we have and if ‑‑ let me get my pointer out again.  Give me just a second.  Okay.  So if we start again let's say you have a fresh start meaning you're on benefits but you've never worked since you got benefits.  That means you have this work incentive package available to you and again this is a recap of what I just described.  But in this sort of timeline.  Right?  So first you're going to get this trial work period.  Nine months where you can earn as much as you want.  These months will count when your earnings are over the trial work level social security calls it, which is increased each year and this year it's currently $1,050 per month.  So if your earnings are over $1,050 it will be a trial work period month.  A word to the wise.  Don't make $15,051 and use one of your trial months.  Really go for it and see how you'll do because it doesn't matter how much you make you're going to keep your benefits during this period of time.  The $1,050 is just a benchmark of earnings at which point social security says if you're over that you've used one of your work trial period months.
In that 60 month rolling period, if you have the very next month after that will be the first month of your extended period of eligibility I told you will last for 36 months or 3 years.  That's a pretty good deal.  So when things change it's not going to sneak up on you.  We have quite a bit of time to help you figure this out.  So you have this 3 year period they call an extended period of eligibility.  What do they do during the EPE?  Social security looks at your countable times decide if your earnings are over the SGA levels.  I told you the amounts is $1,470 for folks who are disabled due to anything other than blindness and $2,460 for those that are disabled due to blindness so if you're over those levels they will say for those months we're not going to pay you your benefit.  But you're still connected to the program as a beneficiary.  Remember I told you the additional bonus you get is the 3 month grace period.  That can occur any time after the trial work period is completed.
It might be during the extended period of eligibility and often it is folks.  I'm careful not to say it will always be in that period of time because it could half even after that's over.  Now I didn't mention this but what happens after this 36 month period?  Well after that 36 month period if you're still gainfully employed that is the time at which social security would terminate benefits.  Not suspend but terminate.  I know that sounds scary.  But hopefully especially if you're working with an employment network like us we've had a plan with you developed so that you understand this is coming.  It's not a surprise.  It's a planned event.  Now I didn't talk about Medicare yet but I'm going to give you some good news about how long you can keep Medicare.  You can keep it for a long time actually but I've got another slide I will share about that.  Let me tell you a little bit more about additional work incentives that apply to social security disability insurance beneficiaries.
That's kind of like what I consider the basic package of work incentives.  But there are additional incentives that can be used to help people be successful in the return to work.
The first of which and again not to make you experts but more to highlight that these incentives exist so if something I'm saying today really resonates within you and you want to learn more you can.  That's the point.  There's a lot of folks that don't even know these incentives are available.  So the first that I will talk about is an impairment related work expense or what we call an IRWE.  So what is it?  Well this helps beneficiaries who are working and as a result of working have more expenses related to work and related to their condition.  So what it does for you is it allows some of these expenses to be valued and then counted as ‑‑ or not counted as income by social security.  So we can reduce the amount of income that social security looks at.  Now in short in an IRWE exists when the following conditions apply.  You have an expense that's related to allowing you to go to work as a beneficiary.
The expense is related to a medically determinable condition, not necessarily exactly the condition that you applied for and got benefits but a medically determinable condition.  It could be that condition.  It might be another condition that's come up since then.
The expense or item or service in some cases is paid for out of your pocket.  That's an important thing to distinguish.  Not paid for by another entity, another agency and so forth.
Generally the expense has to be paid for in the month that you are working.  As you will discover there are always exceptions to the rule with social security policy.  One of those exceptions is if it's a very large expense it might be something that could be prorated over a 12 month period.  But generally speaking it's going to happen in the month you're working.  Next the expense has to be reasonable.  Now this can be used with SSDI and SSI beneficiaries and I'm trying to focus on the SSDI right now but I have to mention this can be used with both but how it impacts beneficiaries that either get SSI or SSDI is different so let me briefly try to describe that.
My purpose about bringing up IRWE is not to teach you all the expenses that can fall under an IRWE but show you how it impacts your wages and how it impacts social security making decisions about your wages.
So IRWE as I said is used to reduce gross wages.  We're coming back to that term, leaving countable wages that social security looks at when making SGA determinations.  I'll say that one more time.  What this does is allows you to reduce the gross wages that social security looks at leave countable wages that social security uses to make these decisions.
A quick example Joe is earning $1,550 gross per month.  And he has $150 per month in allowable IRWE expenses.  So this is how social security would look at this.  Just briefly looking at the math.  Not to explain what the IRWE is how you submit it or the process of submitting it, a work incentive practitioner can help you with that but rather let's look at the high level and look at Joe who is making $1,550 per month and that's more than the SGA level this year of $1,470 per month but not much more.  Is it?  So when you think about it lets say Joe got $1,200 a month in disability benefits.  Why would he want to give up $1,200 in disability benefits to earn only $80 over that SGA level?  It wouldn't be wise would it?  And I agree.  So we would try to employ a work incentive like this to help Joe reduce his gross wages, which this does.  We take the $150 in IRWE allowed, subtract it from $1,550 gross earnings and that leaves $1,400 in what we call countable wages.  That $1,400 in countable wages is less than the SGA level for this year of $1,470.  Therefore allowing Joe in this case to continue to receive his cash benefit.  So in short work incentives work like this.  Gross wages minus work incentives equals countable wages.  Or the wages that social security looks at to make these important decisions.  In this indication, it allowed Joe to make the amount of money he really should be able to make and maybe was able to make without influencing it otherwise we used an incentive and allowed him to keep his benefits when he's this close to SGA.  This just makes sense.
For SSI recipients all I want you to know is that an IRWE can be used to reduce gross wages again but it works differently because SSI is mathematically driven but what it can do is allow you to recoup up to 1/2 of the expense you paid for out‑of‑pocket for that impairment related work expense.
That's another matter we can get you assistance with offline.  Let me talk about one more incentive that is little known but helpful in many cases.  It's called a subsidy.
This is a work incentive for social security disability insurance beneficiaries only.  I put a note at the bottom to remind us of that.  What is it?  Well it's hard to describe really.  What I did was I pulled some bullet points right out of the policy from social security to give it to you directly.  Social security says a subsidy is when an employer willingly pays more in wages than the value of services performed by an employee.  I will talk more about that.  Or it could be because the person the beneficiary receives full value only because of some agency that provides extra services to the employee.  This to social security is what they call a special condition.  Now I know that language sounds kind of harsh.  The way I look at it and have over the years because I like to simplify whatever I can whatever I read within social security policy when possible, I think about this as an employer accommodating somebody.
Right?
Like an employer subsidy can be looked at in some cases, not always but it's when an employer does something different for you because of your condition.  Maybe they accommodate you and maybe there's a way then we can put a value on that accommodation.  That's not how the policy reads.  That's the way I like to look at it and how it has played out in most of the cases I've helped people with over the years.  Let me just briefly tell you how this helps you as a beneficiary before we move on.
Subsidy can be used again to reduce gross wages leaving less countable wages that social security examines when they're making these SGA determinations.
Another example, simple one.  Again not what is a subsidy, what specifically counts as a subsidy, how do you file it, but just at the highest level what does this do for the beneficiary.
All those other questions can be answered if you work with a certified work incentive practitioner.  Jane is earning $1,550 gross per month and has $150 per month in subsidized wages we will say for today has been approved by social security.  So what would social security do at their then they would look at the earnings the gross wages of $1,550.  You have $1,400 in countable wages and that's glow the SGA flesh hold therefore instead of Jane having her benefits suspended or possibly terminated she continued to be paid.  That's what the subsidy did for Jane in this example.  Again I know you probably have lots of questions about how all this works but I just wanted you aware this exists for today's training.
I will talk a little bit about an expedited reinstatement of benefit.  This is another exciting provision.  This came out of the Ticket to Work and work incentives improvement act.  That's also where we got the tickets to work program but this is a work incentive that was invented to help beneficiaries that go back to work then because of that work they get terminated from benefits and maybe then they lose their job.  What do you do then?  This is a concern a lot of beneficiaries I work with over the years have, understandably so.  So let me tell you who is eligible.
If these conditions exist for SSDI or SSI you would be eligible for an expedited reinstatement of benefits.
This is for people who got terminated and want to be reinstated in a different way.  This is sort of like a back door to social security for former beneficiaries.
So what would have to be in place for this to happen?  Well you have to stop receiving your benefits because of earnings from work.  Then you're unable to work or perform what they call substantial gainful activity levels of work.  Because your condition.  Or because of a related impairment.  And you have to make this request within 5 years from the month your benefits were terminated.  So after that trial work ‑‑ I'm sorry beyond the trial work period, beyond the extended period of eligibility you're terminated and when you're terminated this 5 year clock starts for us to use this EXR if we need it.  So another I like to think of it as another ace we have up our sleeve if we need this because things didn't go as planned.
Here's another exciting thing I can tell you.  While this is being decided you can receive provisional benefits for up to 6 months while social security is making a decision to see if you will get your benefits back or not.  Your Medicare and Medicaid will also continue during this period.
So another safety net for people that want to work.  Now I said I would talk about Medicare coverage.  Let's talk about extended Medicare eligibility.  An SSDI beneficiary is entitled to your Medicare well beyond that trial work period.  In fact I can tell you with certainty that you're going to get your Medicare for at least 93 months following that 9 month trial work period.  Maybe longer.
But at least 93 months.  That's a long time for us to figure out insurance.  Isn't it?  Now during that period your hospital is automatic, part A and cost free and your outpatient coverage that's part B will continue to be optional and subject to a premium which you will have to pay.  The part B premium for this year is $164.90 a month.  So that means for you folks on SSDI when you go to work you can keep your Medicare for at least 102 months and most likely longer and I counted in with that 93 months that 9 month trial period and that's 102 months.  That's amazing.  So the loss of healthcare will not sneak up on us.  We can do some planning can't we?  I put a link here for folks that do get this layer there's a link that giving you information about Medicare premiums.  Before I move into SSI I want to talk a little bit about why we think you're not alone.  We know this is all complicated information.  I've been doing this a long time and I still get confused about social security policy.  But I can tell you that at each of our sites at ADEN we have one certified work incentive practitioner to help you out.  They help you understand the high level and your benefits through a specific report we can request through social security that's specific to you and your use of work incentives.  From that we can help to establish a roadmap with you that will explain what to expect when you start working and now that you've gotten a job what to expect with the work incentives that are left.  Okay?
So it won't sneak up on you.  We want it to be a planned event.  We'll help to review social security letters you get and help interpret those.  Because they are confusing.  We will advocate for you as needed.  So maybe something happens that we didn't expect or maybe things didn't go as planned.  That's when we can often step in and help you with social security issues.
Okay but we want you empowered and we do that by understanding this policy and sharing that policy with you.  So that you don't have to fear things that you don't know are coming.  We can help you plan that and understand that.
With that folks I want to move into the next part of the presentation that covers work incentives for supplemental security income recipients, very different.  Very different program in how it works in terms of work incentives.
It's all mathematically driven and harder to verbally describe which is why I have equations in here to help spell this out later.  But let me try to just describe generally some of the incentives for people that get SSI.
The first thing I can tell you is that you will get a general income exclusion.  That means the first $20 of any kind of income whether it's earned or unearned and I'll talk about that, that's excluded each month.  There's an earned income exclusion.  Social security excludes the first $65 of earnings each month.  And any applicable student earned income exclusions.  That's a separate incentive.  Impairment related work expense.  Remember we talked about that and the fact it is different for people on SSI.  Well it is because it has an impact on the mathematical formula.  And you can recoup up to 1/2 of the cost of those expenses based on how the math works for SSI.  Probably the most powerful is the 1/2 earnings exclusion meaning only 1/2 of the remaining earned income is counted.  So for every $2 you earn they only look at $1.  So that's going to make a big difference in the formula as you will see.
There's more incentives there's something called the blind work expense.  If you're disabled due to statutory blindness, um, that will further reduce countable wages.  There's something called a plan to achieve self-support.  This is a really neat work incentive that doesn't get utilized often enough in my opinion but it can allow people to set aside money in an account specifically for this PASS which does not count as a resource.  So that can help give you an advantage in saving some money for what you're trying to achieve as long as that goal is to move towards self-sufficiency.  A student earned income exclusion.  This year and although I said that two for one rule was powerful this is extremely powerful work incentive for students that are regularly attending school.  It allows up to $8,950 per year of earnings to be excluded.  That's an amazing amount of earnings and in a lot of cases just based on the fact that most students aren't working full‑time and making a lot of money, in most cases this exclusion most folks in that situation keep most or all of their SSI benefits.  So for SSI the amount that people get in their benefit is based on something called the federal benefit rate.  Or FBR.  This is an established amount of money for people that get SSI.  For this year if you're single the federal benefit rate is $914 a month and if you're a married couple it's $1,371 per month.  In addition to that federal portion of your SSI most states offer something called a state supplement.  So if you say I get more than that you probably do.  You're probably in a state that has a supplement added to that.  The best way to determine that is to ask your local field office what it is.  It would be impossible to review today all the different state supplements but those are the federal portions and that's what I'll focus on today.
So instead of everybody getting a different amount it's based on that set amount and it's based on your marital status, single or married.
So what counts as income for SSI.  Pretty much everything counts as income.  In social security's world the way they look at it it's anything received in cash or in kind that can be used to meet needs for food, shelter or clothing.  That's a lot of things.  Right?  I will kind of distinguish a little bit what the difference is.  Earnings count in the month the paycheck is dated.  There's two primary kinds of income.  Buckets that social security will look at.  One is earned and one is unearned.  Earned income is all the things you're probably thinking of like wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses, self-employment, even sheltered workshop earnings if those exist can count as earned income.  Unearned income isn't as obvious but it's things and this is the way social security puts it, it's all income that's not earned.  That's unearned income.  It could be things like worker comp benefit, unemployment insurance, it could be that concurrent beneficiary I talked about that's also getting SSDI benefit.  Now social security counts resources because this is a needs based program and that's things they can look at that you have that will help you sustain yourself.  As I said the general rule is for this year it's $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for an individual couple.  There's legislation being ‑‑ that has been introduced that's being considered to bump that to $10,000 and $20,000.  We'll see where that goes.  That's currently looked at and it should be since this has been in place since 1989 and things have changed since then haven't this.
One of the best ways that came out in 2014 is achieving a better life experience or ABLE act signed into law December 2014.  It allows individuals who have a disability for social security prior to age 26 to have savings you have $1 million.  If you want to learn more about ABLE accounts visit the able national resource center which is also run by National Disability Institute I'm proud to say.  We put the site there for folks.  Www.ablenrc.org about information how to use that to put some row sources in an account that social security won't look at as a resource.  There's a lot of rules around resources and since we're getting short in time I will not get into those but for the most part income that you produce is income until you've kept it into the following month at which time it will be considered a resource.
There are exceptions to the rule again.  One of which would be tax returns.  Social security allows a 12 month period for folks to keep tax refunds and not count them as a resource.
So let me look at the formula with you a little bit and I'll get my pointer out here to make sense of this if I can and let's just go through this briefly.  This is, you know not the entire formula that social security uses behind the scenes but it's a condensed version of that for purposes of just looking at this example which only examines earned income.
In this example the person is single and they live alone in their federal benefit rate is $914 a month and they're working and earning $1,120 a month.  What I want to do is show you the impact that earnings has on the SSI.  Now without work it's pretty straight forward.  There's nothing to count here.  Right?  And the person would get the full federal benefit rate of $914.  But now the person is working.  Let's look at that.  We get to reduce the remaining amount by two because of the two for one rule I talked about leaving what social security would examine which is the countable income again in this case $517.50.  We would then subtract that from the federal benefit rate what the person is eligible for leaving an adjusted SSI of $396.50.  So I hope you're looking beyond that saying well that's not a bad deal.  Some people would say well I've got to reduce SSI.  Sure you did but you also have that $1,120 in earnings making your total for that month because you're working $1,516.50 versus not working collecting just the federal benefit rate of $914.
I know that's a lot of numbers I threw at you but I wanted you to see you are better off working and the math, you know plays this out.  We can look at lots of different examples with folks that want to work to get SSI to help you with that.
I'm going to give you one more mathematical example.  I think I am.  Here we go.  And I should have kept that pointer out.  Here we go.  So in this example again the person is getting $914 in the federal benefit rate.  So single, live alone.  In this case they make $2,000 a month.  I wanted to give you this example to show you something called the breakeven point.  Because a lot of folks that get SSI think as soon as they do not get any benefit any longer that their Medicaid is gone and that's not true.  So I'll say that more simply.  Just because you go to a zero SSI amount because you're working does not mean you will lose your Medicaid and that's what I will show you in this example.  Let's just look quickly at the math.  $2,000 in earnings.  Twenty dollars general exclusion taken off.  Leaving $1,980.  We take the earned income exclusion of $65 off.  $1,915.  Divide that by 2 because of the 2 for one rule it leaves $957.50 in what social security counts against you.  Well if we take that away from the $914 which is more than the $914 obviously it leaves 0 in SSI.  You will not owe social security anything.  It zeros out the potential benefit but you still have $2,000 in earnings so are you better off or not?  On the face of things here and the numbers $2,000 is a lot better than $914 isn't it?  The real question is am I better off and haven't lost my Medicaid and the answer is yes you are.  Because of a provision in the law called 1619B.  1619B protects your Medicaid even if you earn so much money you move beyond what we call the breakeven point.  That I just demonstrated because your earnings are too high.  So you can be in a nonpay status because of earnings and keep your Medicaid up to very high amounts of money.  There's a threshold in each state.  I looked up just a couple examples for you in New York where I'm calling you from for example the threshold this year is $52,000 plus a year.  And you can keep your Medicaid.  In California it's $56,000.  I didn't look up any others but those were a couple examples.  I did leave a link that takes you to the thresholds for each state for 1619B.  So to be honest I'm not worried about people that lose their Medicaid because of work because they're making a lot of money and they probably don't need it anymore.
But I am really pleased to tell you that you don't have to worry about your Medicaid.  You can work, you can even work so much where you don't get an SSI benefit anymore and keep your Medicaid.  There's another incentive that's separate from all of this but related to the Ticket to Work and work incentives improvement act called Medicaid buy in.  Generally speaking it's called different things in different states but for the most part it's the Medicaid buy in program for working people with disabilities.  Forty‑two states have embraced this as a result of that legislation that was passed in December 99 and it allows those states to expand Medicaid coverage for working age individuals with disabilities to extremely high levels.  It can help you in maintaining your health insurance when you think you're not going to be able to keep your Medicaid any more well we have this next level of coverage under Medicaid buy in.  This is to expand access to Medicaid.  It used to be in days past and I don't want to belabor this folks but when I started folks ended in a spin down, they had to spin down to the level they would be eligible for for Medicaid.  It was a disincentive.  This overcomes that that we faced for years and now goes the opposite direction and expands coverage greatly in every state.  Just one example I looked again in New York right now for single person it's almost $74,000 a year that you can be earning and still have access to Medicaid through this Medicaid buy in.  Pretty exciting.  So what about getting help to return to work?  Those are the basics I wanted to get through and I know it's a lot of information but I want you to know you can get help from ADEN.  We're part of the Ticket to Work and I just want to tell you briefly what Ticket to Work supports look like.  And what it is social security wants you to understand about Ticket to Work supports.  They want you to know that your participation in the program is voluntary.  Not everybody can do this.  They know that we know that but if you're ready to try this and what you heard inspired you today well you can go help through this program if you decide to.  It's important to understand the goal of the program is self-sufficiency.  So you need to make that decision is that right for you.  Is that the right timing for you?  The purpose is to offer you supports you need to increase your ability to work, your earnings and make sure you stay self-supporting to every extent possible.  We don't go away by the way.  We stick with you for years after you're employed to make sure you have an advocate in your corner.  And by agreeing to join an employment network through Ticket to Work you're really agreeing to make an effort to achieve those goals.  Doesn't mean that everybody makes it but that's the goal you want to set forward for yourself.  In terms of eligibility the Ticket to Work program is eligible ‑‑ you're eligible if you're on SSI or SSDI and age 18‑64.  You have to be receiving one of those cash benefits based on disability.  When your ticked is assigned it does protect you from future continuing medical continuing disability reviews as long as you're making what social security calls timely progress.  Know they may ask for other information that looks like something medically related and from the field offices and you should always respond to any request that social security makes of you to make sure you're in compliance.  If you're working with us of course we would help you kind of distinguish the difference between the two.  Services provided by ADEN or any employment network are free of charge to eligible ticketholders.  So you don't have to pay for these services.  Services specific to ADEN and every employment network is allowed to have some flexibility in how they set up their services.  Although there are certain core services that all employment networks have to offer.  Benefits planning services is not one of those core services that all ENs as we call them have to offer.  We've decided to make this part of our service package because we want you to have accurate information about how benefits operate and how returning to work will affect your benefits specifically and your healthcare.  So we can plan for that and not have surprises.
We offer career counseling, often you've done some kind of work that maybe you can't do now and you want to move into something different.  We'll talk to you about how your skills can be transferred.  We help with job placement.  It doesn't mean we will plug you into a job just because we have your ticket but we will help you with that process of getting you employed again.  We're going to be behind the scenes, we're going to help with resumes, cover letters, questions you have about interviews, things like that.
Getting you plugged into the right job banks.
We have financial wellness.  We know how important it is for people to understand how to achieve their financial goals.  We know that sometimes because of a disability people have set down those goals because of that condition.  So those long term goals can be reraised again we hope and we want to offer you referrals and information that will help you with those goals.
We want to offer long term employment supports.  This is a core service you would find at any EN.  Social security wants us to follow up with you for years after you're placed.  Five, 6, even up to 7 years we can behind the scenes.  No one will know.  We're kind of your invisible advocate.
I want to share a couple more slides with you before we close today.  I'm very proud to share with you our statistics from 2022 and our outcomes.  Last year we had 1164 total folks assigned that we served.  66 percent of those folks were employed.  Our average hourly wage for our participants was $28.72 an hour.  The average hours worked by our participants was 32 and the top industries that employed our ADEN participants last year was healthcare, customer service and retail and administrative work.  Folks if you like what you heard and want to take some next steps I want to encourage you to contact one of our ADEN members.  You can visit our website.  At that website you can find our listing of members across the country.  We have some that serve nationally and some that serve certain locations.  That's spelled out in the website and you can find all the members there.  I want you to evaluate if a member is right to work with.  If you work with us we will have an individualized work plan specific to you and your goals and that is by the way how we will assign your ticket.
If you're already assigned to ADEN and you joined today to learn more that's great.  Appreciate that.  Reach out to your ADEN Representative if you have questions about the information we covered today.  We want you to work with your ADEN member to advance your employment and financial goals.  And I'll leave you with this folks.  This is a link to our website that talks about many folks that have been helped through ADEN and who have left the benefits roles successfully and are enjoying being self-sufficient again.  I really appreciate the time that you spent with us today and I hope that this encouraged you if you're thinking about returning to work.  Enjoy the rest of your day!
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