I have been on SSDI for about 10 years and always worked under SGA. Now I got a new job and with the training I will probably go over the SGA for one month. When I call I get all different answers, which drives me nuts, they dont care. But they say I will just have to pay back that one month's payment and I can request a payment arrangement, my disability of $1800 a month wont stop I am sorry worried about this and reading their stuff on line makes me so confused. Can you give me any information, a call would be great. If I am not home I will call you back. Please advise, nobody really cares anymore. Thank you very much, Susan

Hi Susan. The answer to your question is much more complicated than you probably imagine it to be, which is why you've likely gotten different answers from the representatives at Social Security. It certainly isn't as simple as paying back one month of benefits and then going along like nothing ever happened. The correct answer partly depends on whether or not you've completed your 9-month trial work period (TWP), and if so when. My answer assumes that you have completed your TWP, and that the 9th month of your TWP was completed more than 3 years ago. In that case, if you perform what Social Security classifies as SGA level work then it would probably cause your Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits to be terminated after a 3-month grace period.

However, unless a person is in an extended period of eligibility (EPE), Social Security usually doesn't just look at a single month of earnings when making an SGA determination. You wouldn't be in an EPE unless you had previously performed SGA that caused your benefits to be ceased and reinstated. In non-EPE cases, Social Security judges SGA by a person's average monthly earnings over the period worked.

After you complete a 9 month TWP, if Social Security determines that your work is SGA then they cease your period of SSDI entitlement. If that happens within 3 years of the end of your TWP, then your benefits can be reinstated if the SGA level work ends. That 3 year period is their EPE. But, if a person performs SGA more than 3 years after the end of their TWP then it causes their SSDI benefits to be ceased and terminated. The only way to get back on SSDI if that happens is to reapply for benefits and be approved for a new period of SSDI.

The real question is whether or not your single month of SGA will be classified as SGA by Social Security. When deciding whether or not to cease a person's SSDI entitlement due to SGA, Social Security generally looks at the person's average monthly earnings for the months that they perform the job. For example, let's say that a person works the same job for all 12 months of 2022. This person's hours are irregular, so in some months they earn more than SGA level and in other months they earn below SGA level. Over the 12 months, though, we'll say they end up earning a total of $12,000. In that case, Social Security would almost certainly not consider the person's work to be SGA, since their average monthly earnings of $1000 was below the 2022 SGA level of $1350.

Earnings can't always be averaged, though, if the person's hours of work, and/or job duties change materially. When that happens, the person's earnings are averaged separately over different months. And, in rare cases even a single month of SGA level earnings could cause a person's SSDI benefits to be ceased and terminated if that month of earnings resulted from a material change in the person's job duties or hours of work. The following section of Social Security's operations manual addresses this subject: https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0410505015.

The bottom line is that SGA determinations can be very complex, and much more goes into the determination than simply looking at how much a person earns in a single month.

Best, Jerry