When Michigan residents are hurt on-the-job, he or she often feel the financial strain caused by the situation immediately. The injury is likely to cause medical bills to pile up and, if the injury is serious enough, the employee might not be able to return to work for a certain period of time. The inability to work caused by a temporary or permanent disability from a work injury makes it extremely challenging for the worker to pay their bills and meet their basic needs.
Thus, he or she is likely to seek out benefits from state and federal programs. In most cases, this means seeking disability benefits from Social Security, but that is not the only benefits available for disabled workers with limited earning. Depending on the situation that led to the disabling injury in the workplace, a worker could receive worker’s compensation or public disability benefit payments.
Will disability benefits be reduced if you receive other benefits? If it is determined that a recipient of Social Security benefits is also receiving workers’ compensation benefits or other disability benefits, the Social Security Administration might reduce the disability benefits the recipient and their family are currently receiving.
In cases where an individual receives disability payments from private sources, this will not affect your Social Security disability benefits. This includes sources such as private pensions or insurance benefits.
If workers’ compensation benefit payments and public disability payments are received for a job-related injury or illness, this will reduce the amount of Social Security disability benefits the worker receives. Specifically, if the combined total amount that you and your family get from Social Security plus your workers’ compensation payment plus any public disability payment exceeds 80 percent of your average earning before you were injured, your disability benefits will be reduced.
If you are dealing with multiple sources of benefit payments for a disability, it is important to understand how this could impact your Social Security benefits. This also means ensuring that they are not reduced in matters where you are no longer receiving these sources.
Source: Ssa.gov, “Will my disability benefits be reduced if I get workers’ compensation or other public disability benefits?,” accessed June 27, 2016
