You became disabled, took your claim for Social Security Disability (SSD) to court, and ended up winning your benefits. Now that you have been drawing your SSD payments for some time, you feel that you can do some work, even if you cannot go back to working as you were before you became disabled. People who are in this situation are left with a lot of questions. After all, being declared "disabled" by the Social Security Administration is assumed to mean you are physically unable to work. However, there are some rules here that you need to know. Check out this short list of questions about working while receiving your SSD benefits and the answers you need to know.
What does it mean if you are not allowed to do a substantial gainful activity?
While the assumption is that if you are disabled you cannot work at all, that is actually not the case if you go by the rules the Social Security Administration has in place. What they claim as being able to work is being able to perform a substantial gainful activity. In other words, you must not be able to perform work to a certain capacity that could yield a gain of income that would be enough to support yourself financially in order to be declared disabled.
If you cannot do substantial gainful activity, what can you do?
Even though you may not be physically capable of working enough to generate a logical level of financial support for yourself, you can still do some activity and be technically disabled. Therefore, even if you have already started receiving your SSD benefits, you may still be able to do some work. For example, if you do not make over a certain income, the work you do will not be considered substantial gainful activity.
Do you need to report your income if you are drawing SSD benefits?
If you do earn an income, even if it is less than you are allowed, you do have to turn that income into the Social Security Administration. They will keep tabs on how much you earn in a certain period to ensure you are still not making enough to be gainfully employed. In some months, it may even be possible for you to earn more than you are allowed because your earnings will be figured over a span of several months and averaged out.
If you have any questions regarding your benefits, contact a social security disability lawyer in your area for more information.
Share30 June 2018
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