Good morning Larry,
I am a nurse who fell at work broke my neck
I am disabled do to the work injury. I was diagnosed with a incomplete spinal cord injury. TBI among other diagnoses. I receive ssdi since 2017. I received worker’s compensation for 2 years prior until MMI. I haven’t settled my worker’s compensation case as of yet. My Ace 80%.
My question to you is...
What years are offset 2017-2021? When I was collecting ssdi ?
I have no pention... However, I want to start a pention with the compensation settlement. How do I go about it?

Hi. I'm sorry to hear about your accident. There is no set period of time for when workers compensation (WC) can cause an offset to your Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits. As long as you're receiving both SSDI and WC benefits your SSDI can potentially be offset if paying both benefits in full would exceed 80% of your average current earnings (ACE).

There are 3 ways of calculating a person's ACE, and whichever calculation yields the highest ACE is used. By far the most commonly used calculation method is the high-1, which uses the disabled person's highest year of earnings within the 5 year period leading up to their disability onset. Using the high-1 method, the person's ACE is calculated by dividing their total earnings in their highest year by 12. The result is the person's high-1 ACE.

Even if you receive a lump sum settlement of your WC claim instead of ongoing payments, your SSDI benefit rate could be offset for an indefinite period of time. Social Security prorates lump sum settlements into monthly amounts, and that monthly amount is then used to determine whether or not their SSDI benefit must be offset. When a lump sum proration is involved, the offset can continue until the lump sum proration runs out. For example, say that a person receives a $120,000 settlement that's prorated at a monthly rate of $1,000. It would then take 120 months, or 10 years, for the lump sum to be full prorated out, and during that time the person's SSDI benefit could be subject to offset.

My expertise is limited to Social Security benefits, so I can't answer your question about how to go about using your settlement to start a pension or annuity. What I can tell you, though, is that no matter what you do with your WC lump sum settlement it would have no effect on how your potential WC offset would be calculated.

Best, Jerry