Extra Money Because You Are Severely Disabled

sharon, if someone is getting social securitybenefits, can they work at all or what if they have investment property or making moneyin the stock market? there's a big difference between working and making money passablyin investment property or the stock market. that's not going to count against you, butif you are actively physically working, what most people would think of is w-2 income.you can work a little bit, but there's very strict rules on that, and so here's how itworks. social security will look at a rolling five year period, and if they see during thatfive year period a total of nine months where you've earned $750 per month or more gross,so that's not much, they will consider that you've exhausted what they call your trialwork period and at that point you should be

able to go back to work. now we're not talkingabout nine consecutive months, we're talking about nine months total over a 5 year period.so can you work? yes. can you work a lot? no, you can't. you can't earn very much. nowrealistically, if you reach the point of going back to full time work, then you need to dothat, because there's a point where social security will get your medical records andthey will see that you can go back to work, but for most people that not going to be thecase. someone is getting social security benefits and they and their doctor think its appropriateto try to get back into the workforce, how does that work? so that they don't criminallyimpair their benefit stream. you can try, you can try, and their is a program calledticket to work that the social security administration

runs and through that program you can tryfor a limited period of time without losing your benefits and see how you do, it's prettylimited though, it's less then nine months. see how you do, and if you're ok, if you cantolerate it, and continue to work and you would do that and stop your disability. andactually thats a great situation to be productive cause you're going to make more money presumably.absolutely, absolutely. i think that's a big misconception about social security disability.it's been received a lot of negative publicity as the middle class alternative to welfare,which is really really insulting. people don't realize, you don't get rich off of socialsecurity disability. like i said, at most, you might get $2000 a month, and that's frompeople who are highly productive, high earners.

most people that i deal with would like totalk to anybody in the world but me. they would much rather be at work talking to theirboss, then talking to a disability lawyer, so i think all the negative publicity hasdone a real disservice to people who are truly injured and unable to work. it's probablymade the process even longer, judges are more careful, examiners are more conservative probably- there's no question of that. absolutely, in the last 18 months i have seen that acrossthe board in all jurisdictions where i handle cases, that the hill you're climbing is evenhigher. it's even tougher. they're looking for even more evidence then before because,in part because i believe, of all the negative publicity. in my practice representing peoplewho have claims under their long term disability

insurance policies, their contracts, i seea lot of folks with fibromyalgia, with chronic fatigue, with symptoms and restrictions fromlyme's disease and things like that. we find these case to be rarely difficult. is it thesame in the social security world? yes it is, probably for the same reasons you're dealingwith. some of these conditions are little, what i'll call fuzzy. there's some degreeof controversy in the medical community about how legitimate they are or how severe theyare and we find in trying to find sufficient medical evidence to back up our claim, thatcan be very difficult. so, i've won cases that've involved those conditions, generally,it's not just those conditions however that we're dealing with. generally there's a varietyof things going on with the client, that's

one part of it. and then the side effectsof the medications they may be taking for those conditions that can be an awful awfulexperience for the person who's suffering. yes. the sick person no question, yes yes,but we find they are difficult. they're a lot more difficult because they symptoms aresubjective as opposed to our clients who have herniated disks, - a ct scan of cancer, andtheir back surgery has failed, and you can see on the mri, you can see what the problemis. it's very objective. when you're dealing with any kind of case that is subjective likefatigue or chronic pain, not related say to back, where you can see an xray or an mriwhere you're just dealing with the subjective symptoms, that does make it that much harderto be successful in the case.

well sharon, thanks for being on the program,once again, my guest today is sharon christie, a social security disability attorney. sharonis the author of the unofficial guide to social security disability claims, sharon tell usonce again how people can find out more about you and more importantly get a copy of yourfree book. sure, just go to my website, www.sharonchristielaw.com or to get a copy of the book, you can orderit on the website or you can call my office: 410 823 8200. alright, thanks for being withus. thanks ben!