Working While Applying for Disability
By Jessica M. Friedman of Friedman Law Firm, P.C.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
People contact us and ask if they can work and still qualify for social security disability or SSI. This is what I say:
My first question is "Can you work?" Can you work and can you earn enough money to meet the earnings threshold for Social Security ($1220/month for 2019)? If you can make that much a month, you don't meet SSA's definition of disability and you shouldn't be applying for benefits. It's better to work and earn money than hope that the government is going to award your disability.
So the question is can you work? And if you can work, work, if you cannot work, then don't work. I understand that you may have financial obligations, you may feel like you need to try to work. SSA will allow you to try to work. If you fail, we can usually get the judge to understand that, although you tried, you were not able to keep working.
For the SSI benefit, which is needs based, there comes a point where they start offsetting the money that you earned. So it's something to call us and discuss with us before you do it.
I think the bottom line is, the question is, are you truly not able to work? That's the question you have to ask yourself, because that's the question that Social Security is going to ask you. That's the question that the Judge is going to ask.