Home » How Does an Injury Settlement Affect SSDI Benefits in Pennsylvania?

How Does an Injury Settlement Affect SSDI Benefits in Pennsylvania?

If you get monthly Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) checks and recently received an injury settlement in Pennsylvania, your benefits should remain unaffected.

Receiving an injury settlement at any point in your life will not impact you when applying for SSDI benefits in Pennsylvania. Eligibility is determined by a person’s work history and disability, not by their need for financial support. If you get an injury settlement after already receiving SSDI benefits, your monthly payments will remain unaffected as injury settlements are not considered income. While injury settlements do not affect SSDI benefit recipients, they can impact recipients of other disability benefits in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize the impact to ensure you remain eligible for financial support from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

To get a free and confidential review of your case from our Pennsylvania disability lawyers, call Young, Marr, Mallis & Associates today at (215) 515-2954.

Will Getting an Injury Settlement Make Me Ineligible to Receive SSDI Benefits in Pennsylvania?

Whether or not you received a settlement from a negligent party will have no impact on your ability to apply for SSDI benefits in Pennsylvania. Eligibility is based on other factors, not a person’s finances or assets.

Eligibility for SSDI benefits in Pennsylvania is determined by a person’s work credits, not their financial need. As you work over the years, taxes for Social Security will be deducted from your paychecks. This enables you to apply for SSDI benefits should you sustain an injury or become ill or otherwise disabled and be unable to continue earning an income in Pennsylvania.

This means that any injury settlement you received in the past, whether for a workplace accident, slip and fall accident, medical malpractice incident, car accident, or another event, will have no impact on your eligibility to receive SSDI benefits. As long as you have a suitable work history and a qualifying disability, you can get disability benefits in Pennsylvania.

People without sufficient work credits might be able to get SSDI benefits, regardless of a previous injury settlement, if their parent has a qualifying earning record and the applicant sustained their disability before the age of 22.

Will Getting an Injury Settlement Impact My Current SSDI Benefits in Pennsylvania?

Social Security Disability Insurance benefit recipients in Pennsylvania are not allowed to earn over a certain amount on a monthly basis while getting payments from the SSA. If you receive an injury settlement while on SSDI in Pennsylvania, will you no longer be eligible for benefits?

In 2023, SSDI recipients cannot earn upwards of $1,470 per month, or $2,460 if they are blind, and remain eligible for monthly benefits. Furthermore, earning upwards of $1,050 a month as an SSDI recipient will trigger a trial work period, which, if left unchecked, could impact your ability to continue getting payments from the Social Security Administration.

Fortunately for disability recipients, injury settlements are not considered earned income. This means that if a negligent party in Pennsylvania hurts you and you file a lawsuit that results in recovery, that compensation will not adversely impact your SSDI benefit status.

What if I Stop Receiving SSDI Benefits After Getting an Injury Settlement in Pennsylvania?

Clerical errors or other mistakes might cause SSDI recipients to stop getting monthly payments after getting an injury settlement in Pennsylvania. Should this happen, it is important to clarify with the SSA that you are not earning upwards of the substantial gainful activity level and are simply receiving compensation for your damages caused by a negligent party.

You might have to inform the Social Security Administration about your injury settlement to ensure that it does not confuse possible monthly structured settlement payments with income earned from a part-time job.

Receiving a lump sum settlement might have a similar effect, especially if it is considerably higher than the substantial gainful activity threshold for SSDI recipients. While monthly structured payments might not trigger questions from the SSA, a large amount of money being transferred to you following a settlement might.

If you stop getting SSDI payments after receiving an injury settlement, inform our Philadelphia disability lawyers so that we can explain the situation to the SSA. Once the SSA is aware that you are not earning an income and are simply being compensated for medical expenses and pain and suffering, your SSDI benefits should resume if they were temporarily halted in Pennsylvania.

Can Getting an Injury Settlement Impact Other Social Security Disability Benefits in Pennsylvania?

Although injury settlements have little to no impact on SSDI benefits, they can affect a person’s eligibility for other disability benefits in Pennsylvania.

If you are not eligible for SSDI benefits based on your earning record, you might qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits in Pennsylvania. Eligibility for SSI benefits is based on disability and financial need. If you receive an injury settlement of a considerable sum, it might reduce or eliminate your SSI benefits.

It may benefit SSI recipients to negotiate a structured settlement to avoid this. Unlike a lump sum settlement, structured settlements provide people with monthly payments. Your SSI benefits might remain unaffected depending on the amount of your monthly payments from a structured settlement.

If you receive a lump sum settlement and are concerned that your SSI benefits will be in jeopardy, you can use the funds to pay for exempt resources, such as accommodations for your disability, home mortgages, credit cards, student loans, or other debts. SSI benefit recipients can also create a special needs trust that allows them to pay for funds not covered by SSI benefits, keeping them eligible for monthly payments from the Social Security Administration in Pennsylvania.