Hi,
I helped my brother in law, who is self employed part time with a residential cleaning business, obtain unemployment in TN when the pandemic started. All his jobs asked him to not clean their homes until the pandemic was over. He was approved for and received the $600 per week plus TN Unemployment.
Because of his age, 64, and a heart condition he has endured for decades, he had applied for Disability before the pandemic started. In August he was told he was put on Medicaid and received $451 for disability. Then in October the disability amount was reduced to $79 because he was told he should never have received unemployment and they were applying all but $79 of his disability to repay unemployment.
He had no plans to quit working, but could not work any more than he was, so he qualified for unemployment. Is that legal that they are taking his disability to repay unemployment he qualified for? How can he fight it?
Thank you for any advice that could help!

Hi,

Receiving unemployment benefits wouldn't have any negative impact on Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits, so if that's the only type of benefit your brother-in-law receives then he shouldn't have been overpaid due to receiving unemployment insurance. However, if your brother-in-law receives Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, those benefits would be offset basically dollar for dollar by the amount of any unemployment benefits he collects. SSI is a needs based program intended to supplement the income of people who are disabled, blind, or age 65 or older, and who have little or no other means of self-support (https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/).

I don't have enough information to know whether or not your brother-in-law was improperly paid any benefits, but he could file an appeal with Social Security if he disagrees with the decision they made. For more information on the appeals process, refer to the following Social Security publication: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10041.pdf.

Best, Jerry