In this article, an Augusta Social Security disability attorney explains why working part-time during your trial work period can be to your disadvantage.
Working Full-Time
During the nine-month trial work period, you may earn as much money as you can without losing your benefits. The purpose is to determine whether or not you are still capable of working full-time while your benefits remain constant. If you maintain a full-time position and at the end of eight months you know that you are unable to go on, your benefits will remain intact. Until you are pronounced medically fit to work, you will continue to receive your benefits without interruption.
Working Part-Time
Your Augusta Social Security disability lawyer has often found that many people exhaust their nine-month trial period by taking on part-time work. It then comes as a shock to find that the trial period is no longer available to them and the SSA has not yet declared them disabled. Essentially, they’ve already used it up. Your income should not exceed the amount allotted during the trial work period. In 2010, it was $720 per month, but it tends to increase on a yearly basis more often than not. If your income goes above that level for nine months since your application was filed, even if there are gaps between those months, it adds up if the nine months are all within a period of five years. After that, you have lost it.
Loss of Benefits
It comes as an additional shock to find that once a claimant’s trial period has been exhausted through part-time work, the Social Security Administration cuts off the claimant’s disability benefits. These months add up, and when you do go back to work full-time, your benefits do not continue past the first few months you are working. If you cease work before three years have passed since you exhausted your trial work period, your benefits may be restored. If, however, at the end of those three years, you return to a full-time job, the SSA must cease to pay benefits before the end of the first four weeks. It will be problematic attempting to renew your benefits if you cannot go on with your job once you have passed the three-year mark subsequent to the end of your trial work period.
Your Augusta Social Security Disability Lawyer’s Recommendation
The trial work period is extremely important to you. It is not recommended that you exhaust it or waste it by working in a part-time job. To avoid this, do not allow your income to go beyond the trial work period services allowed sum.
Get the Facts
If you have questions or require assistance, your Augusta Social Security disability attorney can offer answers and help. Call us today.