Going back to work with SSDI - will my future SS retirement benefit decrease if I earn less now?

This is actually a really important question that many SSDI recipients face when considering return to work. The good news is that your retirement benefit calculation will likely NOT be significantly reduced if you return to work. Here's why: When you transition from SSDI to retirement at FRA, the SSA will calculate your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) based on your earnings history, but they actually exclude periods of disability from negatively impacting your calculation. The years you've been on SSDI are essentially treated as if they don't exist for calculation purposes. If you go back to work now, even at a lower salary than your previous career, you're actually adding earnings years that could potentially replace any $0 earning years from before your high-earning career started (like when you were in college or just starting out). Your benefit amount is based on your Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) from your highest 35 years, and if you have fewer than 35 years of earnings, the missing years are counted as zeros. So adding even modest earnings years can be beneficial if they replace zeros in the calculation.

i was in sorta similar situation bout 3 yrs ago when i went back 2 work after bein on disability. it messed up my benefits BIG TIME. had to fight with ssa for MONTHS to get it fixed. they kept sayin i was over the limit even after i stopped workin

Your question really hits home - I went through something similar. Let me clarify a couple things based on my experience: 1) First, what you're calling "SSRI" is actually just called Social Security retirement benefits or retirement insurance benefits (RIB). I've never heard any SSA rep use the term SSRI. 2) The good news: When you reach FRA, your benefit calculation includes a special "disability freeze" provision that protects you. The years you've been receiving SSDI are excluded from the calculation specifically to prevent your benefit from being reduced because of disability-related earnings loss. 3) If you work now, those new earnings will only be included in your calculation if they help your benefit amount. If they're lower than your earlier years, they won't bring your eventual retirement benefit down. 4) However, you're right to be concerned about losing your current SSDI. That's $32,400 annually you'd be giving up to earn $32,000, which doesn't make financial sense unless there are strong non-financial reasons to work. Have you considered trying the Ticket to Work program first? It gives you a trial work period where you can test your ability to work without immediately losing benefits.

DONT DO IT!!!!! The SSA system is RIGGED against disabled workers! I tried going back to work part time and not only did they cut off my benefits with NO WARNING, they claimed I owed them $14,000 in "overpayments" even though I reported EVERYTHING on time!!! Then I couldn't get my benefits restarted when I had to stop working because my condition got worse. It took TWO YEARS and a lawyer to fix!!!! They SAY they want disabled people to work but its a TRAP!!!! If ur getting $2700/month KEEP IT!!!!!

Have you tried calling SSA directly to ask them about this? That's probably the safest way to get an accurate answer for your specific situation since everybody's earnings record is different. Good luck getting through though! I spent 3 days trying to speak with someone last month and kept getting disconnected after waiting over an hour each time.

To address your follow-up question about whether working part-time would increase your eventual benefit: It depends on your full earnings history. You mentioned having about 15 years of high earnings before disability. If you have fewer than 35 years of total earnings in your history, then yes, adding $32k earnings years would likely increase your eventual retirement benefit compared to staying on SSDI, because they'd replace some $0 years in your calculation. You can create a my Social Security account at ssa.gov and view your complete earnings record. Count how many years you have with earnings. If it's less than 35, then working now could help. Keep in mind that the benefit formula gives more weight to earnings from early in your career (they're indexed for inflation), so even your earnings from the 1980s or 1990s could be worth more in the calculation than you might expect. You might want to ask SSA for a benefit estimate based on both scenarios.

one other thing nobody mentioned... if u go back to work u get medicare for like 8 years after ur benefits stop. thats what my case worker told me. so u dont lose health insurance right away

My sister went through this last year. She had been on SSDI for about 8 years and decided to try working again. The paperwork and reporting requirements were a NIGHTMARE. She had to document everything and still ended up with an overpayment notice. The stress actually made her condition worse and she had to stop working anyway. Just something to consider beyond just the financial aspects.

It just seems crazy to me that the system is set up so that if you try to be productive and work, you might end up worse off financially. Shouldn't there be some kind of gradual reduction instead of this cliff where you lose everything once you hit that SGA limit? The whole thing discourages people from trying to work at all.