ptsd Ssdi Awarded With Retro

[halos2]

Been helping a VV vet since 07 with claim...first 30% then over a few years getting worse, another C&P and raised to 50%. Progressively gotten worse. Terminated from job and put in new claim and he did a claim for SSA in Nov 2010. Went into hospital PTSD Treatment program almost 2 months, inpatient stay all days and nights. Continued to receive SSA and 50% VA. No info received from VA...VSO says no movement...requested new C&P exam...waited...finally got in touch with Congressman. Within 3 months new exam C&P for PTSD scheduled. Went to exam and approximately over 1 month granted 70%( had also put in TDIU over 2 years ago)...then 3 days later granted IU with date of exam !! Put in for earlier effective date. Waiting and putting a NOD in a month or so as he had put in for SSDI during this time too. SSDI awarded 4 days after veterans SSA hearing, and effective date used was date vet was terminated. They used all vets records and files to make their decision.(Date put in for SSDI was about 6 months or so post termination date). So the SSA determined termination date as date to use for granting. They could not understand how VA did not grant VA claim earlier...Retro received a few days after granting...all total was 7 days from hearing to receiving grant letter to receiving deposit in the bank. Anyone else this lucky with the SSA? It also didn't hurt that the veteran had an excellent work record prior...even though vet quit jobs within 2 different places over 7 years he kept his sales and income up for the businesses, until his PTSD got so bad he could no longer hide his symptoms!

[Hollis]

FREE_SPRIT_ECT,, thanks you so much for your time and energy to reply to me and others who are looking in. I was mandatory retired from the federal government at age 57. I was able to file for unemployment and drew one check. I got a job with a Government Contractor for 2 years( 2007) I quit before I got into a physical altercation with one of the bosses. I was SC for hearing lost in 2008 and PTSD in Feb. 2013. I applied for SSDI June of this year and like I said I was told up front that I did not qualify since I have not worked since 2007.The person would not listen to me about my PTSD or my hearing disabilities. They also said I make to much money,, yea right? , they even applied my SC disability as income , which I think is wrong since the Federal Government does to consider it for TAXES. Anyway that is my story, anyone wishing to help out on this I would appreciate it. If you or anyone would like to email me do so at hollis57@bellsouth.net

Thank,

[free_spirit_etc]

Hollis,

Do you know when you last had insured status? What you would need to do is see if you could prove that you were disabled (under SS standards) at a time you still had insured status. Part of that is based on your past occupational history. SS has different rules for different age groups. Once you pass age 50, proving disability is easier. There are different standards for approaching advanced age (50 or older), advanced age (55 or older) and approaching retirement age (60 or older). For older claimants, you mostly have to prove you cannot do the type of work you used to do. (Younger workers also have to show that they can't do any other types of work, and that they can't be trained to do other types of work.)

As far as income, unearned income does not affect Social Security Disability. Earned income does. If they told you that you had too much income, that was probably for SSI, which is different than SSDI. SSI is a needs based program. But if you are disabled, and do not have insured status with SSDI, they will check to see if your income and resources qualify you for SSI. They do count most all of your income and resources for that. They even count in-kind support (for instance, if you are living with someone else and being provided food / housing). So they don't base it on taxable income. They base it on the total of countable income and resources.

So it looks like you don' t qualify for SSI. As far as SSD, you would have to show:

1. You are disabled under SS standards - (being older you would most likely have to show you are unable to do the work you are trained to do).

2. You were disabled under SS standards while you still had insured status.

So you would have to show that your hearing loss, your PTSD, and any non-service connected disabilities you have would prevent you from doing the work you have always done - and that those disabilities were such that they would have prevented you from doing that type of work when you still had insured status.

Have you considered talking to an Social Security lawyer, and seeing if they could help?

[Hollis]

free_sprit_etc, well this so confusing and I guess that is what they want. I am drawing SS, I have paid enough credits that I do qualify for SS. But SINCE I WAS MANATORY retired at age 57, I had to wait till I was 62 to draw it. I am being penalize because I retired from the federal government and fall under the windfall tax, WHICH THEY TAKE BACK ABOUT 45% OF WHAT I WAS SUPPOSE TO GET. ALL the money I paid into the SS fund was from other jobs other than the federal government.

THANKS AGAIN FOR TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT TO ME.

[free_spirit_etc]

Hollis,

I am also potentially affected by the windfall provision. My pension now is SURS (State University Retirement System) -- if my state has any money left when I retire. (My state not only didn't contribute their portion of our contributions, they spent our part.)

The windfall provision seems to make the assumption that SS payments made by government workers were from small part-time jobs. Since low wage workers get a larger percentage of their income in SS benefits, they felt it was wrong to pay those same benefits to workers who relied on other (non-SS-covered jobs) for their income, and were merely supplement their income with an SS covered job. Basically lower paid workers can get about 55 % of their working pay in SS benefits; where higher paid workers only get about 25% of their income. So they figured if the gave someone who was merely supplementing their government income with a SS-covered job, 55% of those earnings back in benefits - that it wasn't fair- because they weren't actually low wage workers. They just had a part-time job that was not a major portion of their income.

Social Security says the windfall provision helps adjust the payments to be similar to the payments someone would receive if all their income was from covered employment - but $X was for a part-time job.

So they are saying basically, you are in a different position if you earned $5,000 in a year and relied on that income to live on, than if you made $40,000 from a non-covered job and $5,000 from a covered job. So instead of paying you benefits based on the idea that you were living on $5,000 a year, they pay you benefits you would have received if you earned $45,000 at a covered job instead of $40,000. That is oversimplifying it, but that is the basic idea.

In my case, I was working at a nursing home that was run by a church in 1983. The nursing home did not pay into Social Security in 1983, but began paying it in 1984. I remembered they had meetings before that and even gave us pay raises to help offset some of the cost to us of having SS payments withheld from our pay.

SS says The Windfall Elimination Provision does not apply if: and it lists several provisions which include "You were employed on December 31, 1983, by a nonprofit organization that did not withhold Social Security taxes from your pay at first, but then began withholding Social Security taxes from your pay;"

I called SS several years ago and asked how to get it recorded on my record that I was working for a non-profit December 31, 1983 - and was covered by this."

They tried to tell me that I would have had to have retired from THAT job and drawn retirement based on THAT job. There is nothing in the provisions that state you have to work at that job until you retire and draw retirement from them. Nursing Home jobs don't generally even have retirement pay.

The they said "You didn't even have a job that paid SS in 1983. You started paying in 1984. (Uhmmm... yes... that was the non-profit employer who did not withhold SS in 1983 and began withholding it in 1984 - the one that makes me eligible to be exempt from the windfall provision....)

But then they told me they can't get it recorded in my SS record, and I have to wait until I retire to get a statement from that employer then. They sure have been able to record other things on my record when they want to.

My retirement income from SS OR SURS won't be extremely high. But when I retire, I could start drawing 100% of my husband's benefits. But since you can only draw about 150% of benefits on the record of one worker, that would mean my son (disabled) would have his income dropped from 75% of my husband's benefits to 50%. So if I can shift some of the benefits I draw over to my own record, that will preserve his higher amount of benefits.

Government Pensions also affect what you can draw on your spouse's record. That is called the Government Pension Offset, rather than the Windfall Elimination Provision. But it works similar.

I don't have it all worked out right now, but I am working on it.

Here are the exceptions to the Windfall Elimination Provision: (if you can show one of them applies in your case, you could probably stop the offset they are taking out of your payments):

The Windfall Elimination Provision does not

apply if:

• You are a federal worker first hired after

December 31, 1983;

• You were employed on December 31, 1983, by

a nonprofit organization that did not withhold

Social Security taxes from your pay at first,

but then began withholding Social Security

taxes from your pay;

• Your only pension is based on railroad

employment;

• The only work you did where you did not pay

Social Security taxes was before 1957; or

• You have 30 or more years of substantial

earnings under Social Security.

Here is a brochure on the Windfall Elimination Provision http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf

Also, were you paying into both SS and Government Pension when you retired? Some government jobs pay into both. For awhile people were able to avoid the offset by changing to a job that paid into both for the last few days they worked. But then they changed the rules to where you had to work a job that paid into both for at least the last five years of your employment...or something like that. I don't have the exact facts on it right now - but I remember reading about it.

Edited September 6, 2013 by free_spirit_etc