2016 Budget Proposal Would Require Reporting of Workers’ Compensation Benefits to Social Security Administration

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been vocal in the past about its difficulty in obtaining information about workers’ compensation benefits. The primary reason that the SSA has been seeking this information is to reduce social security benefits by way of an SSDI/WC offset. The SSDI/WC offset is a calculation used by the SSA to reduce a beneficiary’s SSDI benefit amount if the person is also receiving workers’ compensation benefits. The SSDI/WC offset is different in every state and applies only when the individual's combined monthly amounts of SSDI and workers' compensation are greater than 80% of individual's pre-disability "average current earnings.”

The SSA currently has to rely on beneficiaries to report to the SSA when they receive workers’ compensation or public disability benefits. President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal includes a provision to establish a new federal requirement that workers’ compensation and public disability benefit information be provided by states, local governments, and private insurers to the SSA.

The budget proposal summary includes the narrative below:

Establish Workers’ Compensation Information Reporting. Current law requires SSA to reduce an individual’s Disability Insurance (DI) benefit if he or she receives workers’ compensation (WC) or public disability benefits (PDB). SSA currently relies upon beneficiaries to report when they receive these benefits. This proposal...


[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on