Many of my clients who are injured on the job in New York State are disabled and stay out of work longer than 12 months. In such an instance, can the injured worker ALSO receive Social Security Disability Benefits?

In many cases, the answer is YES.

If the Workers Compensation (WC) claimant (injured worker) is 24 years old and has a back injury, and stays out ow work longer than 12 months, I would say that person has a very low chance of winning a SSD claim. Probably too young. But let’s assume the injured worker is 55, speaks no English, has only had heavy jobs (requiring lots of lifting) their whole life and has that same back injury and time out of work (over 12 months.) Now, there’s a good SSD claim. I file both of these types of claims all the time for my clients………..if I win both, a client gets BOTH benefits at the same time!

The “catch” is that there is a monetary limit to how much a disabled worker can receive as a COMBINATION of SSD and WC. Here’s the rules:

1. SSD will only “offset” (lower its benefits) if the claimant also receives “public” benefits like WC, but not “private” benefits like a Long Term Disability policy that the client is covered by, or a private pension.

2. The applicable limit on receiving SSD and WC is the higher of either:

• 80% of the worker’s pre-injury income, called “average current earnings,” or
• the total amount of SSDI received by all of the members of the recipient’s family in the first month that worker’s compensation is received, called the “total family benefit.”

For most SSDI recipients, the 80% of earnings figure will be higher, and Social Security will use that figure in the offset calculation.

That’s why I practice in both areas of the law—–often, they go together like Batman and Robin, or peanut butter and jelly, or pork and beans, or…………..well, you get the picture!