“Four years ago, I wanted to work again, but I was scared that once I quit, I’d never be able to work again. Before my injury, I’d always been a hard worker and provided for my family,” Doug Forss, 49, said.
Forth began receiving SSDI benefits in 2007. A few years earlier, he had been working as a union painter in East Peoria, Illinois, where part of the job involved lifting heavy paint buckets. At age 29 and with three children, he was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal disorder. “There were times when I couldn’t even walk,” he says.
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He searched the internet to find out, “Will it be hard to get my disability benefits back if I try to work?” and discovered Ticket to Work. Through the program, he was connected with Allsup Employment Services (AES), one of hundreds of workforce development agencies that partner with the SSA to provide job training and rehabilitation, career advice, job placement and workplace assistance to disability benefit recipients.
TTW participants work with these groups to develop a plan for entering or returning to the workforce. They must take steps to achieve related education, training, or employment goals within a set time frame. SSDI (but not SSI) recipients can work up to nine months in any five-year period and receive benefits regardless of their income. (SSA calls this a trial work period.) [TWP].
Your benefits will end if your job becomes permanent and your salary exceeds the Social Security Administration’s earnings limits, but if you are forced to take time off work because of a medical condition, the Social Security Administration has an expedited process for restarting your benefits.
In January 2023, Forth got a job as a security guard in Dresden, Tennessee, where he had moved with his wife the previous year. In March 2023, he started working full-time as a forklift operator. He believes that participating in Ticket to Work has not only improved his financial situation, but also his mental health.
“You need to feel like you’re making a contribution,” he says. “AES changed my life. Without them, I would still be disabled. I’m the last [benefit] Check back on January 1st of this year.”
Robin McCoy, a breast cancer survivor, has transitioned from a job in IT to running her own treatment clinic in the Detroit area.
Brittany Gleason
Cancer puts career on hold
Robin McCoy worked as an IT manager in a variety of industries for over 20 years before she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019. She received SSDI benefits in 2020. When she recovered and was able to look for work again, she found the employment gap problematic.
“You say ‘cancer,’ and they say ‘no thanks,'” said McCoy, 60, who lives in Southfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
(The SSA shares lists of eligible recipients with Ticket to Work’s partner agencies and helps promote and recruit for the program.) “I was in my car. It was a rainy day,” she recalls.
Although McCoy was “eager to return to work,” he told AES he wasn’t interested in another IT job: “I was tired of the job search, tired of the treatment, and tired of working for another company.”
Even before her cancer diagnosis, she was already trying to transition to a new career: She holds a master’s degree in psychology and was working part-time as a therapist and counselor while pursuing her PhD (due out in 2023). When McCoy mentioned this to her case manager at AES, the agency “offered me support to work independently,” she says. She now oversees a team of mental health professionals at her Southfield clinic and runs her own business full-time.
Verna Boyd struggled to resume her nursing career in North Carolina after cancer treatment, but found work with help from the Ticket to Work program.
Justin Cook
Verna Boyd faced similar hurdles when she tried to return to work after surviving breast cancer. Two years after her diagnosis in March 2021 and seven months after she began receiving SSDI benefits, she was declared cancer cured. A registered nurse in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area with more than 20 years of experience and a community service award, she began applying for hospital jobs.
She had several interviews and “talked about a lot of things,” including her health, but nothing came of it. “I ended up with cancer,” said Boyd, 56. “I didn’t think I’d have any problems going back to work.”