Can I work if I'm getting social security disability benefits? - YouTube

Sharon, if someone is getting social security benefits, can they work at all or what if

they have investment property or making money in the stock market?

There's a big difference between working and making money passably in investment property

or the stock market.

That's not going to count against you, but if you are actively physically working, what

most people would think of is W-2 income.

You can work a little bit, but there's very strict rules on that, and so here's how it

works.

Social security will look at a rolling five year period, and if they see during that five

year period a total of nine months where you've earned $750 per month or more gross, so that's

not much, they will consider that you've exhausted what they call your trial work period and

at that point you should be able to go back to work.

Now we're not talking about nine consecutive months, we're talking about nine months total

over a 5 year period.

So can you work?

Yes.

Can you work a lot?

No, you can't.

You can't earn very much.

Now realistically, if you reach the point of going back to full time work, then you

need to do that, because there's a point where social security will get your medical records

and they will see that you can go back to work, but for most people that not going to

be the case.

Someone is getting social security benefits and they and their doctor think its appropriate

to try to get back into the workforce, how does that work?

So that they don't criminally impair their benefit stream.

You can try, you can try, and their is a program called ticket to work that the social security

administration runs and through that program you can try for a limited period of time without

losing your benefits and see how you do, it's pretty limited though, it's less then nine

months.

See how you do, and if you're ok, if you can tolerate it, and continue to work and you

would do that and stop your disability.

And actually thats a great situation to be productive cause you're going to make more

money presumably.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I think that's a big misconception about social security disability.

It's been received a lot of negative publicity as the middle class alternative to welfare,

which is really really insulting.

People don't realize, you don't get rich off of social security disability.

Like I said, at most, you might get $2000 a month, and that's from people who are highly

productive, high earners.

Most people that I deal with would like to talk to anybody in the world but me.

They would much rather be at work talking to their boss, then talking to a disability

lawyer, so I think all the negative publicity has done a real disservice to people who are

truly injured and unable to work.

It's probably made the process even longer, judges are more careful, examiners are more

conservative probably - there's no question of that.

Absolutely, in the last 18 months I have seen that across the board in all jurisdictions

where I handle cases, that the hill you're climbing is even higher.

It's even tougher.

They're looking for even more evidence then before because, in part because I believe,

of all the negative publicity.

In my practice representing people who have claims under their long term disability insurance

policies, their contracts, I see a lot of folks with fibromyalgia, with chronic fatigue,

with symptoms and restrictions from Lyme's disease and things like that.

We find these case to be rarely difficult.

Is it the same in the social security world?

Yes it is, probably for the same reasons you're dealing with.

Some of these conditions are little, what I'll call fuzzy.

There's some degree of controversy in the medical community about how legitimate they

are or how severe they are and we find in trying to find sufficient medical evidence

to back up our claim, that can be very difficult.

So, I've won cases that've involved those conditions, generally, it's not just those

conditions however that we're dealing with.

Generally there's a variety of things going on with the client, that's one part of it.

And then the side effects of the medications they may be taking for those conditions that

can be an awful awful experience for the person who's suffering.

Yes.

The sick person no question, yes yes, but we find they are difficult.

They're a lot more difficult because they symptoms are subjective as opposed to our

clients who have herniated disks, - A Ct scan of cancer, and their back surgery has failed,

and you can see on the MRI, you can see what the problem is.

It's very objective.

When you're dealing with any kind of case that is subjective like fatigue or chronic

pain, not related say to back, where you can see an Xray or an MRI where you're just dealing

with the subjective symptoms, that does make it that much harder to be successful in the

case.

Well Sharon, thanks for being on the program, once again, my guest today is Sharon Christie,

a social security disability attorney.

Sharon is the author of the unofficial guide to social security disability claims, Sharon

tell us once again how people can find out more about you and more importantly get a

copy of your free book.

Sure, just go to my website, www.SharonChristielaw.com or to get a copy of the book, you can order

it on the website or you can call my office: 410 823 8200.

Alright, thanks for being with us.

Thanks Ben!