[NHLakesChapter] FW: 2024 Blind Americans Return to Work Act Fact Sheet

Wed Jan 3 21:55:55 UTC 2024

Blind Americans Return to Work Act 

Issue-Current Social Security law has the unintended consequence of holding
back blind Americans from achieving their full earnings potential.

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program has a built in
"earnings cliff." 

Title II of the Social Security Act provides that disability benefits paid
to blind beneficiaries are eliminated if the beneficiary exceeds a monthly
earnings limit.[1] This earnings limit, often called the "earnings cliff,"
is in effect a penalty imposed on blind Americans when they work. For
example, the earnings limit in 2024 for a blind person is $2,590 per month.
If a blind individual earns more than that threshold, even by just one
dollar, they are engaged in substantial gainful activity (SGA). Under the
current law, any individual engaged in SGA is not entitled to any SSDI
benefits. This means that if a blind person earns just one dollar over the
earnings limit, all benefits are lost. 

The earnings cliff incentivizes blind people to choose to remain unemployed
or underemployed, despite their desire to work. 

 In a 2018 survey, National Industries for the Blind (NIB) found that 21
percent of respondents from thirty-four of their non-profit associations had
turned down a raise or promotion to retain their SSDI benefits.[2] The
survey also found that 37 percent of respondents had turned down additional
hours or even asked to reduce their hours in order to retain their SSDI
benefits.[3] Blind Americans who are willing and able to work are
intentionally limiting themselves in order to keep from suddenly losing all
of their SSDI benefits.

The current work incentive in the form of the trial work period is
needlessly complicated and counterintuitive. 

 Under the current SSDI program, if a blind worker wants to try and earn
more money, they will likely trigger a nine-month trial work period. These
nine months do not have to be consecutive, but instead are any nine months
during a rolling sixty-month period in which the worker earned more than a
certain amount (for 2024 this amount is $1,110 per month). When all of those
nine months are exhausted, the worker is once again subject to the earnings
cliff if they cross the SGA threshold. This is supposed to act as an
incentive for blind recipients to determine if they are ready to work, but
the complexity of the rules and the difference between the trial work period
amount and the SGA threshold results in many blind Americans ignoring the
process altogether. 

Solution-Blind Americans Return to Work Act will:

Eliminate the earnings cliff by instituting a ten-year pilot program
establishing a gradual two-for-one phase-out of SSDI benefits with earnings
over the SGA limit. 

 For every two dollars a blind worker earns above the SGA threshold, their
benefits amount will be reduced by one dollar. This ten-year pilot program
will start in 2025 and conclude in 2034 demonstrating that blind Americans
can and will achieve their highest earning potential.

Create a genuine work incentive for SSDI recipients. 

With a phase-out model, blind workers will always be better off striving to
earn as much as possible, which will facilitate the transition of those
workers out of the SSDI system as benefits are gradually reduced. With this
model, blind Americans will never lose by working. As an added benefit,
fewer workers will be earning SSDI benefits and instead be paying into the
Social Security Trust Fund, which means a more balanced Trust Fund in time.

Simplify the SSDI system by eliminating the trial work period and grace
period, making the rules more compatible with the Supplemental Security
Income (SSI) program. 

 Under the proposed system, the SSDI program will become less complicated.
With both programs using similar rules, there will be less confusion, and
the incentive for blind people to return to work will be consistent and
clear.

GOAL-ELIMINATE THE SSDI EARNINGS CLIFF AND CREATE A TRUE WORK INCENTIVE FOR
BLIND AMERICANS.

Sponsor the Blind Americans Return to Work Act.

For more information, contact:

Jesse Shirek, Government Affairs Specialist, National Federation of the
Blind

Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2348, Email:  <mailto:jshirek at nfb.org>
jshirek at nfb.org  or visit  <http://www.nfb.org> www.nfb.org

  _____  

  _____  

[1] 42 U.S.C. Sec. 423.

[2] Commitment to Serve, A presentation given at the 2018 NIB/NAEPB Training
Conference and Expo.

[3] Ibid.

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