Social Security Administration (SSA) officials and members of Congress have been looking for ways to cut spending for years. One of these was a program known as the Ticket to Work. It is designed so a claimant can go back to work at first on a part-time basis without any reduction in benefits. This is meant to address the problem of claimants who would actually prefer to work but are afraid to get any type of employment out of fear their Social Security Disability benefits will be reduced or even cut entirely, if SSA finds out about claimant earning income.
According to a recent news article from the Atlantic, a senior member of a rehabilitation professional association referred to the Ticket to Work program as the greatest disappointment of his professional career.
For many years, before realizing the 1999 program was creating more trouble than it was alleviating, he was a strong supporter of the program. He had once testified before Congress that having a job is much better than being paid to stay at home, and the government should be helping and encouraging people to get back to work.
There were, of course, many financial incentives for SSA to get this program working, because it is estimated that if five percent of Social Security disability beneficiaries went back to work, it would save billions of dollars in benefits payments. The program was, and still is, completely voluntary, and it allows workers trying to get back to work to keep their benefits and insurance, which was a major impediment for claimants going back to the workforce.
SOURCE: Massachusetts Social Security Disability Lawyers Blog – Read entire story here.
