Hello, I have somewhat of a complicated situation- hoping someone can help! have completed my twp and am outside the 36 month epe. During this time I never made more than sga, so benefits were never ceased. In January, based on the pay periods worked, I went over SGA by a bit for the first time. Based on paycheck days I was still under. In February the workload was too much and I reduced my hours, and have continued at a reduced pace. Am I likely to lose my benefits permanently for going over one time? Also, there's a real possibility I may lose this job soon, so I'm not sure what happens then. Thanks for any advice!

Hi. Well, as you say, it's complicated. If you've never previously performed substantial gainful activity (SGA) and if your period of disability entitlement was never ceased, then a single month of above SGA level work wouldn't automatically terminate your entitlement to Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits.

When making an SGA determination, Social Security uses average monthly earnings. So, provided that your average monthly earnings were still below SGA level, then a single month of SGA wouldn't cause your benefits to be ceased. However, Social Security can't average earnings over different calendar years, nor can they include months in the averaging if there was a material change in the person's hours of work or job duties. So, if you've gone to part time, those lower monthly earnings couldn't be averaged with your prior earnings to reduce the countable amount.

What's complicated is the fact that it was January that you apparently exceeded the SGA limit. Those earnings couldn't be averaged with your earnings from the prior year, nor could they be averaged with your earnings starting in February if that's when you switched to part-time work. So, your situation may be problematic.

However, Social Security counts the amount you actually earn in a month for purposes of determining SGA, not the amount paid. So, for example, if the only reason that you went above SGA in January is because you got 3 paychecks instead of 2 paychecks, then you're probably okay. In that case, though, you should definitely keep copies of your payslips so that you can prove to Social Security that you didn't actually earn more than the SGA amount in January.

Here are some references from Social Security's operations manual that may help you: https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0410505015 & https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0410505005.

Best, Jerry