In our last blog, our long term disability attorney in Louisville talked about how you may not be engaging in SGA, even if you monthly income exceeds the SGA earnings cutoff. We’ve mentioned it before, and we’ll say it again, SGA is rarely straightforward, and it can be a very complicated issue. That is why we have started this blog series to help you to get a deeper understanding of SGA.
Can your claim be denied because you are engaging in SGA?
The short answer is yes. If your monthly income is greater than the SGA threshold, the SSA will not consider you to be disabled unless you are working under the special circumstances that we mentioned in our last blog. In most cases, if you aren’t blind and you are making more than $1,090 every month, your claim will almost automatically be denied and you will never even receive a medical review. However, this does not necessarily mean that you should quit your job when you apply for SSD benefits.
What happens if you stop working?
If you stop working in order to avoid a denial based on SGA, you have to prove to the SSA that your disability has gotten bad enough that you can no longer work or perform SGA. When you stop working during the SSD application process, the SSA will first find out if your work activity is considered to be an unsuccessful work attempt or not. If your work activity is found to be an unsuccessful work attempt, any earnings you made during that attempt won’t count towards the decision of whether you are engaging in SGA or not.
We have just a little bit more information for you regarding SGA. Stay tuned for our next blog to learn more.
