How to get Social Security benefits, go to work and live to tell about it

Most people who receive disability benefits from Social Security want to work but worry they’ll lose the cash and medical benefits they depend on for survival. Fear of losing benefits is the greatest obstacle to employment for people with disabilities. Believe it or not, people can work and keep essential benefits using special rules known as “work incentives.”

Hosted by the Howard County Department of Community Resources and Services’ Office of ADA Coordination, Office of Disability Services and the Commission on Disabilities, this interactive training will cover the SSDI and SSI programs, including eligibility criteria and the medical benefit that accompanies each program.

Practical exercises will illustrate how work incentives can benefit real people. Learn how work incentives can:

• Enable people to work, within certain limits, and keep both cash and medical benefits.

• Provide benefits at higher levels and/or longer periods in some cases.

• Protect medical benefits if earnings are high enough to stop cash benefits.

• Restore cash benefits quickly and easily if earnings drop or stop.

• Make people eligible for some extra benefits if they work that they don’t qualify for if they don’t work.

Presenter: Michael Dalto has delivered presentations on benefits and work incentives to thousands of people with disabilities, family members, and professionals since 1989. He created state certification for Maryland benefits counselors and provided training and technical assistance for the certification. He oversaw benefits counseling for the PROMISE project, a research grant that served youths who receive SSI and their families.

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Host or Publisher Howard County Office of ADA Coordination