My horrible situation started years ago when my now deceased husband got sick with liver disease. I / we finally won his case in federal court at age 53 we were together for 25 years married 12. I got hurt on the job 3 accidents and after the 3rd on e made them fill out a report it was the most flawed system I have ever seen I had shoulder surgery in 2010 and W/C waited until 2014 to approve my second shoulder surgery. I had a Lawyer not a very good one I must add, I was told at one point I exhaused my W/C benefits and applied for state disability on my own no word from my lawyer I did this on my own. I was released to go back to work at one point however my employers that NEVER played by the rules OSHA NOR LABOR laws did not abide by the limitations set fourth and simply left me alone in the hotel running both breakfast bar and front desk. My husband died in 2014 the same year I signed off on my workers compensation because I was done bickering and almost lost my home, even went almost two years with no income. I settled for 29,000.00 before paying the lawyer and disability offset? I was found fully favorably disable under social security rules in a court of law in 2014 and the judge and he went back and paid me from 2011 to the present at that time was 2016. I told the western service center of social security department in Richmond CA. all money received from W/C and faxed him the documents. So my husband received 1950.00 a month from SSD when he died I was only able to collect 549.00 even though I was proved disabled by the administrative law Judge for both my SSD and widows benefits. My Social security disability was only 320.00 and we know i couldn't live on that so they added my medicare back in now I get 449.00 a month with is a total of 981.00. I get a letter of over payment in early Oct 2016 stating due to over payment they were taking all of my 449.00 until october the next year. No explanation on how Mr. Wong from the service center came up with his findings in fact I think they under paid me. I have to wait to go to my local SSA office, and my appointment was Dec 26th 2016 she emailed him and talked to him and started sending my checks as critical and told him to figure it out by April 2017 well my checks stopped this month I did not have a check deposited to my account on the 3rd of this month. Never received a letter so back down to SS office she again reinstated my checks. My god I had depression, social disorders, anxiety issues and this is making them worse how can our Government take all my SSD when I'm already considered low income, and my back pay money went to a new roof on my home and many credit card depts. I'm sick of it being so hard to get straight answers and why on my paperwork they send you when you have a job that says if you were to become disabled today you would receive 970.00 granted that was when my husband and I lived in the Bay area and I made more then the 9.25 I made when my work accidents happened at the hotel I worked for 9 years. I was under the impression they took the money you made at the highest time and made their decision on what my check amount would be. I am too tired even sick to fight for this over and over and have no money for attorney fees. What's the real deal and who in heavens name oversees the SSA.
Hi,
I'm sorry to hear about all of the problems you're having.
When you get both Social Security disability benefits and Workers Compensation, Social Security law limits the total amount of the 2 benefits to no more than 80% of your average current earnings, or ACE. The ACE is most often calculated based on the worker's average monthly earnings in their highest year of earnings in the 5 years leading up to when they became disabled.
Even if you received a lump-sum settlement and are no longer receiving Workers Compensation, Social Security may offset disability benefits by prorating the settlement amount. I obviously don't have enough information about your case to determine if Social Security calculated your offset correctly, or even if that's the reason that SSA says that you're overpaid.
All I can tell you is that you could file an appeal of Social Security's determination (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10041.pdf), or you can file for waiver (i.e. forgiveness) of the overpayment. In order to qualify for waiver, you must be without fault in causing the overpayment, and you must either be financially unable to repay the overpayment, or recovery would have to be determined to be against equity and good conscience (https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.19/handbook-1914.html). If you think you may qualify for waiver of your overpayment, you should consider filing a waiver request with SSA (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-632.pdf).
Congress determines Social Security law, and if you disagree with the law or you think that you're case has been mishandled by SSA, you may want to contact the office of your Congressperson or US Senators.
Best, Jerry
