>> Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today's webinar, Ticket to Work, The Pathway to Financial Independence. My name is Brittany Taylor with NDI Consulting, and I will be the moderator for today's presentation. Before we get started, though, I would like to go through just a few logistics and technical information so you can be sure to enjoy today's webinar and learn most effectively. For accessing today's webinar, you can manage your audio using the audio option at the top of your screen. It will look like a microphone or a telephone icon. As a note, all attendees will be muted, and we encourage you to attend by choosing "listen only" from the audio menu when you join today's webinar. This will enable the sound to be broadcast through your computer, so please take a moment now to make sure your speakers are plugged in and your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in. If you do not have sound capabilities on your computer or if you prefer to listen by phone on today's call, please dial the toll-free number, 1-800-832-0736, and the access code for today's meeting is 8458462. A couple notes regarding webinar accessibility for today. Real-time captioning is being provided during this webinar. The captions can be found in the captioning pod, which appears below the slide, and you can also access captioning online via the link http://www.captionedtext.com/client/event.aspx?CustomerID=846&EventID=3478886. For questions and answers, we will be taking questions and answers today. Please use the Q and A pod to submit any questions you have during the webinar and we will be directing the questions accordingly during the Q and A portion. If you are listening by phone and not logged into the webinar, you may also ask questions by emailing the question to webinars@choosework.ssa.gov, and please note that this webinar is being recorded today, and the archive will be available within two weeks on the Choose Work website at http://bit.ly/WISEarchives. If you experience any technical difficulties during the webinar, please use the Q and A box to send a message, or you may email. Again, that email, webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. And with that, I would like to formally welcome everyone again to today's webinar. I'm very happy to have everyone here today. It's the start of a new year, and many of you may have some new resolutions you've set on saving, work, or other ways to advance your own financial independence for yourself or your family, and the information on today's webinar will really help, I hope, motivate, inspire, and guide you throughout this year to achieve those goals for yourself. And with that, I would like to introduce the presenters that we will have for today's webinar, Elizabeth Jennings with NDI Consulting. Elizabeth is the deputy director of National Disability Institute and is a national trainer on Social Security benefits and asset development strategies for persons with disabilities, including favorable tax provisions and the earned income tax credit, financial education, and protected savings opportunities. Additionally, Elizabeth has extensive experience in building and expanding relationships between the disability and asset-building communities. Her decades-long experience includes spearheading asset development initiatives in Florida and New York, creating collaborative agreements, executing grant allocations, providing technical assistance on federal disability policy, and assisting individuals in job development and understanding the effect of work on public benefits. Elizabeth is also the assistant director and training and technical assistance director for National Disability Institute's the LEAD Center, a technical assistance center funded by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy. Elizabeth earned a master of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and is a certified community partner work incentive counselor through Virginia Commonwealth University in collaboration with the Social Security Administration. And our second speaker for today is Nancy Boutot, also from NDI consulting. Nancy is the project manager for the Ticket to Work outreach support for NDI consulting. Nancy provides training and technical assistance on Social Security work incentives, benefits planning, and work support, and other asset development strategies to empower individuals to maximize financial capabilities. Nancy has over 22 years of experience with state government as well as directing nonprofit, community-based employment programs in Florida and New Jersey. Nancy has a master of science in psychiatric rehabilitation from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and is also a certified community partner work incentive coordinator through the Virginia Commonwealth University's national training center. Welcome to both of our presenters, and I would like to extend our gratitude and thanks for being part of today's webinar and for sharing such wonderful information, as I know you will do, and just again to remind folks that my name is Brittany Taylor and I will be the moderator for today's webinar. So just before I hand it over to our first presenter, Nancy, I'm just going to go through a couple of the topics that we are going to be covering on today's webinar. The first is answering, "What is financial independence?" and then looking at setting and reaching goals. Then we're going to look at Ticket to Work, and work incentives, and other ways you can reach your goals. Then we have several great resources to share with you, and then as well, as I mentioned, we will be taking questions and answering those questions that you have. So with that, I would like to turn it over to Nancy, who's going to start us off by talking a bit more about what is financial independence. Nancy? >> Thank you very much, Brittany. I appreciate that lovely introduction. Welcome, everybody. Thank you. I'm looking forward to talking to you today about what financial independence is and what it can mean for individuals who receive either SSI and/or SSDI benefits from the Social Security Administration, especially when you're thinking about returning to work. So when we look at what is financial independence, financial independence means different things to different people. For many, it means reaching a number of small goals to improve your financial well-being, with the ultimate goal of having more choices and less money-related stress. So basically what that means is it's being able to support yourself and to meet your needs and your wants, being able to make choices and to have options about what you buy, where you live, and what you do with your free time. To us, it also means that you're not limited by your Social Security disability benefits and that you have the opportunity to work your way off cash benefits whenever possible. So what can financial independence -- -- offer you? Well, I think it can offer you a lot. First, it can offer you more control over your day to day and month to month finances, so things like your daily spending on things such as food or transportation or monthly spending -- you know, things such as rent, or maybe your monthly internet bill. Financial independence gives you more control over that type of spending. Next is greater ability to absorb a financial shock, like an emergency expense, and you know, despite what people may think, this is hard. Despite the diversity of financial situations, many American households do share a surprising vulnerability, and that is that families, even some who have higher incomes, can be significantly disrupted by just one financial setback. However, most of us can agree that having enough money to comfortably pay the bills and build up savings is important. So what financial independence does is helps you to be able to plan for those unexpected things, such as a possible job loss, or maybe a major home improvement, or an expensive vehicle repair. The other thing that financial independence can do is help us with progress towards financial goals. So we're going to talk about goals a lot during this presentation and the importance of setting goals and making progress towards those goals, whatever they may be, and we'll talk about that in another couple slides. And then lastly, more freedom to afford the items you need and the items you want, and I think this is pretty self-explanatory, but I think when people are limited financially, they are in a situation where they hopefully have enough money to buy what they need, but when it comes to something that they just may want, that's not necessarily an opportunity. So the more financially independent you are, the more opportunity you will have to buy items, not just what you need, but just some of those items that you want as well. So what steps will help you become more financially independent? And we have a lot of steps listed here, and the first thing is to set goals. It's January, so you know, beginning of 2018. Many people feel that this is a great time of year to start setting goals for themselves, and we're going to talk more about goal setting as well on this webinar. The next step in terms of setting an action plan other than setting goals is create a budget, and what is a budget? Well, some people call it a spending plan. Others call it a budget. I actually call it a budget, and a budget is traditionally a plan of your expenses and your income for a certain period of time. So that could be for one month, it could be for one year, or it could be even longer, depending on what your goal or goals are. And then the next step in establishing an action plan is to earn enough money to pay your bills and pay off debt, and that's pretty much why we're here today, right, to talk to you about the Ticket to Work program. Ticket to Work connects you with free employment services to help you decide if working is right for you as well as to help you prepare for work, find a job, or just maintain success on a job you're currently working at. And the next step is something that I think is very important: spend less than you earn and establish an emergency savings fund or an emergency cash fund. So I think spending less than you earn is a great rule of thumb for all of us to live by, and then as you start your emergency fund, keep in mind that there are resource limits that you may for SSI and Medicaid programs, and actually, Elizabeth, our next speaker, will be talking to you more about SSI and SSDI, but that's just something that we want you to keep in mind. The next step is establish good credit, and you can do this by paying your bills on time, by keeping the amount of money that you borrow low, and by having a longer credit history as well, and we're going to talk a little bit more about good credit as well. And then the last step that we have is file your taxes. Many of us are eligible for a tax return, but you only have that opportunity to receive that tax return if you file taxes, and also, you might be eligible for something called the Earned Income Tax Credit, which we're going to be talking about. It's a credit for low to moderate income workers, and we'll get into some of those specifics later, and you can actually qualify and file for the earned income tax credit even if you don't earn enough money to necessarily file taxes. So those are all some pretty good ways to establish an action plan and start your journey on becoming more financially independent. So as I said, we were going to talk more about goals, and when you set a goal, it's really good to be smart about setting those goals, and what we have for you is ways that you can develop those goals and have them work in your favor. So setting goals basically gives you something to focus on, and it gives you something to work towards. So we recommend that you put your goals in writing. We also recommend that you make an action plan, like we just discussed, and that means setting up timelines for when you want to achieve those goals as well as to identify who or what programs or services are available to assist you in meeting those goals. And the last thing with goal setting is stick with it, and sometimes it's hard to stick to a goal, especially if we're struggling, and what we're actually asking for when we ask someone to stick to a goal is that we're kind of changing our behaviors, and change is hard. However, once you start making progress towards your goals, that helps you get motivated to stick with it. Sometimes you just need to give it a little bit of time. So when we talk about goals, let's talk about what we call SMARTER goals. I know some people have heard about SMART goals before. We're going to talk about SMARTER goals, which simply means that we've added on a couple other pieces that can assist you in making your goals a reality. So the first thing is for your goal to be specific, so that means for it to be clear in what you want to accomplish. The next thing in a SMARTER goal is making sure that the goal is meaningful. When your goal motivates you, you will want to do it more and you will want to take the time to reach that goal. The next, A, is achievable, and that means setting a realistic goal, one that you know that you can reach. If we set a goal that's not realistic, it's not going to help us with that motivation, so we always want to make sure it's achievable. Next we want to make sure that goal is relevant, so that means making sure that your goals line up with what you want out of life and that it's something that you're willing and able to work towards. The next part of a SMARTER goal is timely. So what we mean there is set an exact date for when you want to achieve your goal. Setting an exact date can really help you achieve that goal, and it gives you a deadline for yourself, and when you have a deadline, it helps to make that goal a priority for you. The E in SMARTER is evaluate. So make a habit of evaluating your goal every day, and every day may seem like a lot, but really, the more you pay attention to your goal, the higher your chances of reaching that goal. And then the final step is to reassess, and that means to readjust your approach if needed. So for example, if you find yourself pursuing a goal, but maybe you're hitting a brick wall or some type of a roadblock, it may mean that you need to readjust your method and your techniques, and let's think about that when we look at SMARTER goals and we go back to timely. It's great to set an exact date for achieving your goal. However, if when you're reassessing your goal you realize that exact data is not going to be achievable, then it's okay to readjust that goal. So these are your goals for you to work on, and meet, -- -- and achieve, so you're also the one who gets to change them around if needed and readjust them when you need to, which is a nice thing to be able to do. So why SMARTER goals work. SMARTER goals clearly state the results that you are going to achieve. We all know that goal-setting is an essential part of life, and when goals and the results of those goals are clear, people are more motivated to work towards their goals. And SMARTER goals also provide discipline to us, and I don't know about you guys, but I definitely need discipline at time when I'm trying to save money, and that SMARTER goal provides the discipline to help us improve our chances of success. And I think we all need goals in order to help kind of light the road to our hopes and dreams, and goals can also help us with setting up that action plan that we talked about to guide us in what we desire in life. So let's talk a little bit more about that action plan, and action plans can be for various types of goals, but just a reminder. When we talk about them here, we're talking about action plans for our financial goals to assist us in becoming more financially independent. So the first is make a list of what you want to save for. What are those items, or what might be those services? So some of you might be saving for a home, or possibly it's a car, or maybe you're saving for a trip, or maybe you're saving a small amount to purchase someone a gift, or it could also be a service, such as purchasing maybe affordable financial services. Again, the goals are yours, so they're completely up to you. And then the next thing that we suggest for an action plan is put the list in order of what's most important to you. And then the next thing that we do is have you identify the cost of each item or service, because it's hard to put a plan in action if we don't know how much it's going to cost. And then the next thing is to determine how you will afford those costs. So it doesn't make sense to set up an action plan and having something that you can't afford, so determine what you can afford, and when you're thinking about that, think of things like what actions or changes are going to occur as I follow this plan. Who will help me carry out these changes? Who do I need to speak to? Is it family members? Is it staff that I work with? Is it my contact at my employment network? And then you want to think of when are these going to take place, so when are the changes going to take place, and for how long for you to reach those financial goals, and then what resources might need to be implemented as well? So those are some ways that you can help guide your action plan that'll get you towards your financial goal. So let's put this all together, and we're going to start by talking about a budget. So what exactly is a budget? A budget is a plan for your income and your expenses for a certain period of time, as we mentioned before, like a month or a year. It could be a week. I know some people that budget their money on a daily basis because money burns a hole in their pocket pretty quickly, and they realize that they take their week's expendable income, and then they break that down on a daily basis, and they look at what they have to spend on a daily basis. So again, it's your budget, and you get to choose, but what budgeting does is helps you make the best use of your money so that you can reach that goal that you've set for yourself, and it can also help you track your spending to see how much money you have and to see where you're spending it, and then from there, where you might be able to save. So if you're like many people out there, you may not know exactly where your money goes. You open up your wallet or you open up your purse and you find yourself saying, "Hmm, I thought I had 20 bucks on me. How come I only have eight dollars?" and when you're doing that, that's a great little hint to say okay, it's time for me to start writing down my spending, and basically, that means writing down every dollar and where it goes each day, and when you do that, many people are surprised at just how that little spending each day can really add up to a lot. So having a budget really helps you to be able to see where your money's going and see where you're able to cut costs so that you can save. All right, moving on. When we talk about creating a budget, a good place to start is looking at what income and finances you have available to you. So some of those could be unearned income, which could be from SSDI, Social Security disability insurance, or it could also be back pay that you have received either from SSDI, Social Security disability insurance, or SSI, supplemental security income. Other forms of income could be earned income from employment, whether that be being employed at a business or having your own business and being self-employed. Countable types of resources can also come from the Earned Income Tax Credit, and I'm so happy to be talking to you about that later on in the presentation. I think the timing is perfect to be talking about taxes, and then other tax refunds, like tax credits if you have a disability, or possibly credit for medical expenses such as health insurance premiums. Those are things that you can identify as sources of income and finances that you want to make sure you look at when you're creating your budget. So there are many resources out there for creating a budget, and if you need help creating a budget, let me tell you something. That is absolutely fine, because many people don't have a budget. Many people are very good at spending money but not really good at budgeting their money, so I think there's lots of people out there who could benefit from some services. Sorry, talking a little too fast there. So one of the ways that you can get information about creating a budget is to contact your local Center for Independent Living, and you can find your closest FIL, or Center for Independent Living, by going to www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html, and then there's also Money Smart, and Money Smart is made available from the FDIC, and it's provided online as a self-paced e-learning course. We are very big fans of it at NDI Consulting, and we think if you try it out, you will enjoy it as well. Because the online e-learning courses are self-paced, that means that you can go log in and take financial education classes whenever you have time. You can stop and go back and continue the class whenever you have time. You can share it with friends and family members as well. They have one for everybody. They have one for youth, they have one for if you have a child living in your family that you'd like to offer financial education to, and it's all free, at absolutely no cost. So to learn more about that and check out Money Smart, you can go to www.fdic.org/consuemrs/consumer/moneysmart/index.html. And with that, Brittany, I think I'll turn it back over to you and see -- oops, sorry; didn't mean to go forward there -- and see if we have any questions, maybe. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much, Nancy. And I am seeing in the chat box people did not know about that resource and are very excited to be learning about Money Smart, and like Nancy said, it is one of our absolute favorite resources for money management, and it's completely free, as Nancy said. So yeah, so it is available, and people are excited about that, Nancy, and I loved you going over the SMARTER goals, because I think it really puts the goal-setter in the driver's seat, and I know at least for me, that makes me feel more secure already and like I have a little bit of power behind the decisions of how my money is being saved and spent. But we do have some questions coming in, and the first one kind of piggybacks on the resources that you were sharing before, but are there any other organizations which provide free classes to teach me about budgeting, saving, money, and credit, and also, I'll add, are there places online if I'm not able to make it to a Center for Independent Living, as you mentioned, that I could access some of those resources? >> Sure. That was a long question. I think I might have to ask you to repeat some of it, but I'll start answering the question first. So first of all, wonderful question to whoever answered that or asked that question, and yes, there are lots. So other than the Independent Living Center that we talked about and FDIC, I'll say that NDI also has a free financial education toolkit, which includes things such as a spending diary. One of my favorites, which is a menu planning and budgeting shopping list, and what I really like about that is on one side of the paper, you write down your menu for the week, and then on the other side, you write down what ingredients you need to purchase from the store, so then you can see if you've got enough money to do that type of menu planning for the week, and it allows you to adjust your menu to fit your budget and then helps you with that shopping list as well. One of the other things that I think is really great is something called top picks for online money management tools. So that is a list of ten or 12 different online resources that people can use to assist them with their budgeting. So I will give you that URL. It is https://www.realeconomicimpact.org/our-work/financial-education. Oh, great, and I see Marlene just put that in the notes so people can click on it. Thank you very much, Marlene. One of the other places that I love that provide free financial management classes are local university extensions, and what some university extensions do are offer not just free financial classes. They actually have a tremendous amount of community-based learning opportunities for individuals, and they are free. So I'm going to read the URL off for that as well. It's a bit of a long one, but again, if you just remember your local university extensions and Google that in your area, you'll find some wonderful information and find out if there are any free financial management classes being offered near you, and that website is https://nifa.usda.gov/land-grant-colleges-and-uni versities- partner-website-directory?state=FL&type=extension, and I see that Marlene has put that up in the notes as well, so that's great. So those are two wonderful resources, and I'm not sure if that answered your full question, Brittany, or was there another part to it? >> It did. You had talked a bit about some of the virtual online training, and that was the second part of the question. >> Great. >> I thought that was such a great comprehensive overview of where people can access classes to teach them about budgeting, and savings, and money, and credit, and all those things that aren't fun to think about but are very important to think about, especially this time of year, and I am seeing several people asking in the chat box, but just as a reminder, in the notes section, all of those links are being inserted into the notes section so you can easily access them at any time. If it's okay, Nancy, I'd like to ask one more quick question and then keep moving forward, since we have a lot of other information to get to, but I think this one kind of queues up what we're going to be learning about next. If I have a representative payee for my supplement security income, do you think it's still important for me to have a budget? >> Ah, excellent question, and the answer is yes, absolutely. So just to give a quick, general, two-second overview, the Social Security representative payee program helps provide financial management for both SSDI and SSI payments for beneficiaries who may need a little more assistance in managing their Social Security or SSI payments. So again, yeah, I think working with your representative payee is a great way for both of you to keep track of your money. Remember that person is there serving in your best interest, and it could be a family member, it could be somebody that may have been appointed by the Social Security Administration, but you want to have the same idea in mind, which is keeping track of your money, setting financial goals, and possibly even creating an action plan for those goals. So personally, I think that if you have a rep payee, having a budget helps you to keep in touch with that rep payee even more. Great question. >> Great. Thank you so much, Nancy, and I think that really kind of tees, Elizabeth, you up really nicely to start talking a little bit more about Social Security disability benefits and some of the work incentives that those on the line today may be able to access and a little bit more about how their budgeting can impact their decisions about work. >> Great. I'd be happy to. Thank you so much, Brittany. Thank you, Nancy, for the beautiful job you did going through different aspects of financial independence. I know that I learned a lot, and as somebody who works with you at National Disability Institute, I know that we understand that many of you on the line are doing a really great job of managing the limited income that you have, and when you look at your budget or you look at your finances, you realize that the challenge is you really need more income, and so I hope today we'll be able to answer some of the questions you have about how to get on that path back to employment so that you can increase your income and then have the challenge of how you'll budget that additional income that you have. So we're going to talk to you a little bit about Social Security disability benefits. As many of you may know, there are two different programs. There's Social Security disability insurance and supplemental security income, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute. There are several groups that receive Social Security disability insurance. We're going to focus in on folks who have paid into the system, so they've been paying their taxes through employment, and they've reached a point in time where they have enough quarters in the system or credits that they're able to receive a disability benefit based on that time worked. These individuals -- -- demonstrate that they have a documented disability that prevents them from working at a substantial level, and as such, they need to take back out of the system that they have paid into. Social Security disability insurance comes with Medicare, and people wait. They have a waiting period. They wait 24 months after the start of their SSDI cash benefit to receive their Medicare benefit. That can be a challenging period of time where people who may have been more well off may need to spend additional money on their medical insurance or their medical needs, and so some of this information can be really helpful as you're kind of regrouping around the income that you have. We did a WISE webinar specifically on Social Security disability insurance and SSDI work incentive, and I want to make sure that if you're on the line today, you know where you can go to view that webinar archive. It took place on September 27th, 2007, and I wonder if Marlene, you wouldn't mind putting the link to the webinar archive into the chat box. It's off of the Choose Work website, and I know from the chat box that reading out the links has been important, so I want folks to know that it's available at https://choosework.ssa.gov/webinars-tutorials/webinar-archive.html, and we'll put that in the chat box so that you can capture that link, or maybe we could also put it in the note box so that you can capture that link, and you want the two-part series and the one we did on SSDI on September 27th, 2017. If you're on the line today and you get SSDI, I really want to encourage you to go back and watch that WISE webinar because it's going to give you a lot of the basic knowledge that you need to understand how your benefits work, and for additional information, you'll be encouraged to contact the Ticket to Work help line. But not everybody on the line gets SSDI. Some of you receive SSI, or supplemental security income. SSI is, again, for people who have demonstrated that they have a documented medical condition that prevents them from working at a substantial level, but people on SSI also have limited income and assets, and the amount of money an individual receives under SSI is also limited, so it's going to be really important to be able to think through how those limited funds are going to stretch through a month, and it's really important to consider earned income through work as a way to supplement that income. Now some of you on the line receive both SSDI and SSI, and you may also receive both medical insurances, which I'm sorry I didn't note. SSI comes with Medicaid in most states. And when you return to work, it can be a little bit more complicated, as you need to understand the rules for both benefits, and so we're going to talk through how you can get that support in just a few minutes. If you're not sure which benefit you receive, it's critically important that you know before you take advice from anyone on what might happen to your benefits when you return to work, and you can find out which benefit you receive by going to ssa.gov -- that's www.ssa.gov -- and looking at opening a My Account, and the My Social Security account allows you to print out a benefit verification letter, and this will help you to be certain about which benefit you receive, SSI or SSDI. I should have mentioned that we also did a webinar for folks who receive SSI, and it's the same link that Marlene has posted in both the presenter chat and the notes box, but for those of you who receive SSI, you will want to take a look at part one of that two-part series, which was held on August 23rd, 2017. As you make the decision to work, you're going to want to figure out, as Nancy noted, what your action plan is, and for many people, a good start to taking the next step to returning to work is the Ticket to Work program. We're really excited to see so many people on the line today because it lets us know that you are contemplating making a return to work, and we hope the information you get today will help you understand what some good next steps are going to be. But for those of you who are still thinking about whether or not you want to choose to work, we want to make sure you remember that there's lots of things that come from working. Of course you're going to be able to earn more income. That's always important for all of us, but there's also the opportunity to gain additional independence, to meet new people, and to learn new skills. What it really comes down to is helping us to have the best optimal view of ourselves and what we're able to contribute to the world and how our life brings meaning to ourselves and to those around us, and for many of us, myself included, work is a big component of that. So while you may not have an exact idea as to what you want to do, there's different opportunities that you can take through the Ticket to Work program to explore what your interests are at this point in your life, how you want to share the talents and skills that you have with the world, and how you want to use that to benefit yourself, and that may results in a couple of different job paths that your Ticket to Work partners are going to be able to help you explore. We know that starting the journey can be a little big challenging. Only you can decide if work is the right choice for you, and we recognize that it's a big decision, but many people are successfully returning to work and experiencing changes in their benefits that are planned events, and that's what we hope you'll be able to do and what we want to help you do through the Ticket to Work program. So making that choice to work can help you set down on this path to financial independence that, as Nancy said, is a mixture of setting goals, achieving those goals, setting new goals, evaluating where you are, and I hope you all will take time to celebrate the results. So let's talk a little bit about the Ticket to Work program. Ticket to Work offers career development for people age 18 through 64 who receive Social Security disability benefits, as we mentioned, both SSDI and SSI, and it's important for you to know that it's a free and voluntary Social Security program, so the services are free. Nobody should ask you to pay for any of the services that you receive, and if that does happen, you'll want to give a call to the Ticket to Work help line to make sure that's something that was planned for, and it's completely voluntary, so it's your choice to participate in the Ticket to Work program. As you decide about taking the next step, we want to encourage you to do a couple things. One is to gather information and resources that will be key to planning your journey toward employment and toward financial independence, and you really started that today. The Ticket to Work and work incentive that we're going to talk about in just a minute can help make your journey a smooth one, but having good information is really key to all of it, so I hope you will download the webinars that we discussed. Go in. You can view the webinar. You can also download the materials from that webinar so you have an opportunity to dig a little deeper into them, and then you always have the support of the Ticket to Work help line, which is staffed with individuals who can help you better understand the Ticket to Work program, better understand your SSDI and SSI benefits, and help connect you to other resources that you need to make a good decision and to get started under Ticket to Work. So for more information or for support in better understanding the program, you can call the Ticket to Work help line. The phone number is 1-866-968-7842, for those of you who use TTY, the number is 1-866-833-2967, and you can also visit the website at choosework.ssa.gov. The Choose Work website has a lot of great information, including success stories of people who have started out just like you, attending a WISE webinar, made the call to the Ticket to Work help line, chose an employment network to have the services that they need to return to work, and then did the work that they needed to do in order to do to secure employment and move on down that path to financial independence. Now I know many of you may be a little bit concerned about what happens to your benefits when you make that choice to go to work, and as I mentioned before, there will likely be impact on your benefits, but you can make this a planned event by understanding the way your benefits work and your work incentives and getting guidance through the Ticket to Work help line and through work incentive planning and assistance programs. What you'll learn about are the different work incentives that Social Security provides to people who receive SSDI and SSI benefits. The work incentives are special rules that allow you to receive training for new skills, improve the skills you already have, pursue your education, and gain confidence, some of the critical things to returning to work. When you look at reaching your goals, working and using work incentives is a great way to reach them. Other ways may include free tax preparation services and the Earned Income Tax Credit that we're going to talk about in just a minute. I just want to take a moment before I return you to information about financial independence to share with you two of my favorite work incentives, one for SSDI and one for SSI. For folks under Social Security disability insurance, there's a provision that allows you, and you actually can do this under SSI as well, but it allows you to deduct items that you need to return to work because of your disability, so if there are costs you experience now that you pay for -- that you will pay for to go to work because of your disability, you'll be able to deduct those and keep more of your cash benefit or have less of your countable wages count against you. I don't want to complicate things, but I just want to say that when you think about budgeting, this is a great tool that you can use where you can also use the budget to identify items that you're paying to go to work, which can help you as you look at the amount of earnings that you want to work towards. And then on the SSI side, I just want to take a moment, because a lot of times, I hear folks get a little confused between the rules of SSI and SSDI, and they get concerned about how much money they can earn, and the most popular question received is, "How much money can I earn before I lose my cash benefit?" And for folks on SSI, it's important to know that there's a rule called 1619B that allows you to keep your Medicaid even if you no longer receive a cash benefit, as long as you are eligible based on certain rules and you don't go above your state's threshold amount, and across the states, that amount ranges from about 26,000 up to 66,000 dollars a year. So if you're on SSI and you're thinking, "I really need to hold on to my Medicaid," I want to make sure you know that there's hope for you, that you can utilize this very important work incentive. I'm going to stop there, but encourage you again to look back at the two-part webinar series we provided, which shares lots more information about SSI and SSDI much more eloquently than I did today, and that will be a good start, but that your next step will be to call the Ticket to Work help line so that you can secure additional information and help yourself understand the next steps to take to participate in the Ticket to Work program. >> Hey, Elizabeth. Sorry, Brittany. Elizabeth, before you turn it back over, could you repeat the dates for the webinars that you were talking about? We've got somebody who's interested, so I want to make sure they get that information. >> Yeah, I'd be happy to. >> Thank you. >> So it was a two-part series that we did on SSI and SSI work incentive which took place on August 23rd, 2017, and if you look in the notes pod, you can see that the website that starts choosework.ssa.gov/webinars will lead you to that archive, and then part two was on SSDI and SSDI work incentive, and that took place on September 27th, 2017, and you can get to that webinar through the same link. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing that. We've gotten quite a few people in the chat box very excited about those resources, so as a reminder, everyone, as we mention resources, we'll be sure to put them into the note section for you to access, and then you don't need to write down the URL if you don't need to. So Elizabeth, before we move forward, I have gotten a few questions that have come in, and the first one is pretty easy. Can you remind me again where I can find information and learn if I am eligible for the Ticket to Work program? >> Sure. I think the best way that you can do that is by calling the Ticket to Work help line, and that number again is 1-866-968-7842. For folks who use TTY, it's 1-866-833-2967, and you can also visit the Choose Work website, which is at https://choosework.ssa.gov, and thank you, Brittany, for putting up the slide that it's on. Make it a little easier for the audience. >> I thought that might help. So the next question, and I want to put out that I think it is extremely brave of the person who asked this question to bring it forward, but the next question is: I've tried to go back to work and failed. I've tried many times, until I gave up. I'm scared of failing again. Where I can go to find support or help dealing with that fear of going back to work and then get help the first few months at a job? So thank you to whoever asked that. That was an incredibly brave question to ask on this webinar, and a very good one as well. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well, first I want to say that, you know, what's really brave is taking the steps you've likely already taken. So if you're on the line and you've lived with a disability your whole life, I'm sure you've encountered many things that have been challenging, and if you incurred a disability and have made your way back from that disability, then there's incredible steps that you have taken as well. So if you can pause for a moment and reflect on your life, probably the hardest things you've had to do you've already accomplished. However, this also can be very scary, moving forward and heading back to work, and that's not just based on the disability, but for anybody who's left the work force and needs to come back, and that is, to me, one of my favorite things about the Ticket to Work help line, is that's understood, and the employment networks that are registered under Ticket to Work demonstrate that they have significant experience supporting people in making the return to work, and they're invested in you because their success is based on your success in securing a position and your continued success in keeping that position. So you will not just be supported to get a job, but you will be supported to keep that job. One of the things that you can do when you're auditioning employment networks: When you call the Ticket to Work help line, they'll provide you with a list of employment networks, and it's up to you, your choice, which one you choose. So you'll be kind of interviewing some of these employment networks to see which is the right one for you, and the power in that is that you can ask the employment networks about some of the key things that you'll need from them. It's really your chance to be honest with them about what you've experienced and what you feel some of your barriers are, and if they're not able to support you in the way that you need to be supported, you can move on to the next employment network. Some of them only serve people in the area that you live in, and some of them serve people nationally, and I encourage you to check out both and ask a few critical questions. There's also a WISE webinar archive on choosing the right employment network for you. It's the same link to the webinar archive, and I encourage you -- -- to go back and take a look at that as well, but I just want to say you've got this. If you could make it to the live webinar today, I have every confidence in you that you can take the next step. >> Great. Thank you, Elizabeth, and I just want to ask one final question before we keep moving forward. It's a quick one, but you had mentioned some of your favorite work incentives, and the question came in. Can I use the work incentives one at a time, or can I use several at the same time? I think that's a great question. >> That is a great question. So as you talk to the Ticket to Work help line, and in the future, you may also talk to a work incentive planning and assistance project, they're going to share with you information about several work incentive, and Social Security was very wise in making the decision that you can use all of them at the same time. So a couple things sometimes happen sequentially, but you're always able to use multiple work incentives at the same time, and you can continue to get support. Nothing is just a one time and done. You can continue to call the Ticket to Work help line, you can continue to get support from your employment network, and you can continue to get guidance from the work incentive planning and assistance projects who provide free benefits counseling for folks as they start their jobs. You can continue to get that support as you need it. Nothing is just once. >> Excellent. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, and now I would like to turn it over to Nancy. Both Elizabeth and Nancy, you have mentioned a bit about filing taxes and what you do when it comes to tax season, which we are quickly coming up on. So Nancy, could you go over a little bit more about some of the free tax preparation services available and a little bit of background on some of those tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit that people might be eligible for? >> I certainly can, and give me one second. I was in the middle of answering a question, and I just wanted to make sure that I finish it, so thank you, Brittany. Yes, free tax preparation services and the Earned Income Tax Credit. We actually had a question that came in that said, "Are you going to talk about that?" and I said, "Yes. Actually, it's coming up next." So I'm thrilled to talk about this. It's the perfect time to talk about taxes. Filing season actually begins next Monday, January 29th, so a perfect time to talk about this, and actually, I just got some information from the IRS. They expect that close to 155 million individual tax returns will be filed in 2018, and I hope some of them come from people who are on this webinar today, and maybe if you haven't filed taxes or looked into the Earned Income Tax Credit before, you will after this next segment. Before I go on, too, I'd just like to say that the deadline for this year's taxes will be April 17th, so usually, we hear about April 15th, but just due to the way the calendar works out, tax season closes April 17th this year, so that actually gives us all a couple extra days to submit our taxes. However, my suggestion is you do it as close to next Monday as possible so that you can start looking forward to what you're going to do with any money you might be getting back. All right. So why is filing taxes important? Well, the very easy first question is it's the law. It's something that you have to do. The next reason why it's important is if you receive credit for all of your earnings under your Social Security number, which you should be when you're earning money, and reporting your wages, and having deductions taken out, then some of that money is eligible to come back to you, so why not file taxes and get it? You may also qualify for special disability tax deductions, so it's good to file to know if you're eligible for those types of credits as well, and then it can also help you plan for your future, and it can do that because getting a tax refund gives you a lot more opportunities to put money towards those goals that we were talking about earlier. So let's now talk a little bit more about taxes, and we'll talk about -- I'm sorry, I just -- free tax preparation and the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. So the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, VITA, is free tax assistance from IRS-certified volunteers, and VITA is eligible for people who generally make about 54,000 dollars a year or less, people with disabilities, and also available for limited English-speaking taxpayers. The Volunteer Income Tax program is a great program. We love VITA at NDI Consulting. Even though it says volunteer, the volunteers are trained by the IRS. They have to take a class, they have to pass the test in order to become a volunteer, and all the tax filings are reviewed by the IRS as well, and they do have a very high rate of doing accurate taxes. One of the things that's great this time of the year about VITA is soon, VITA sites can be found almost wherever you go during tax season, so it could be your local library, it could be a church. Sometimes VITA sites are set up in the mall. United Way and other community-based organizations are heavily involved in VITA. Some of your community action agencies, if you have a Boys and Girls Club. Many different places have VITA sites for you to go to to be able to get your taxes done for free, and we'll give you more information on how you can locate them yourself when we get into some of these taxes resources. But for now, what I'd like to talk to you about is another free tax preparation service, and that is MyFreeTaxes.com, and MyFreeTaxes.com is the only tax-filing software that offers free federal and state tax preparation assistance for qualified individuals in all 50 states. So we say qualified individual, which basically means if your household earned less than 66,000 dollars in 2017, you can file both your federal and your state returns for free, and this is the only free national online tax filing product offered by a nonprofit. It's offered by the United Way, and it helps millions of taxpayers to increase financial dependence by filing those taxes for free and assisting people with being able to file their taxes for free. And then there is also a special disability tax benefit and tools, some resources that we'd like to talk to you about. A person with a disability may qualify for special tax deductions and credits. So you can find a list of special tax deductions and credits by going to www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/disability-related-products, and some of the information that you could find there is information on tax credits for the elderly or the disabled. You can find information on the disabled access tax credit as well as the work opportunity tax credit. And then there's also the interactive tax assistance tool, which can be found at www.irs.gov/help/ita for interactive tax assistance, and that can answer many of your questions about deductions, tax credits, or other subjects. So what that site does is allows you to use a tool that provides answers to any number of tax law questions and can you help you determine if -- -- a type of income is taxable, if you're eligible to claim certain credits, and if you can deduct certain expenses on your tax return. So those are two really good resources for you. Now we are going to talk about one of our favorites, the Earned Income Tax Credit. The Earned Income Tax Credit, otherwise known as the EITC, is a tax credit for low to moderate income workers who are age 25 to 64 if you don't have children or age 18 to 64 if you have one or more children, and if you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit and you have at least one child, you may be able to claim other child-related tax credits as well. So these credits don't necessarily work alone for one another. You can get more than one tax credit at the same time. The Earned Income Tax Credit is provided by the IRS, and I'm not sure if you know this, but it basically gives you a tax credit simply for working, and the great thing about the Earned Income Tax Credit is you can file for it even if you didn't earn enough money to file taxes. So if you're on the webinar today and you worked a small amount last year in 2018 and you don't have any tax liability, meaning you're not going to owe taxes, therefore you just think you're not going to file, I would encourage you to file because you may not have earned a lot, but you could have earned enough to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and if you do, you can file for the tax credit and possibly get some money back, and one of the nice things also about the Earned Income Tax Credit is you can file for the tax credit even if the tax year has passed. You can actually go back up to three years, so what we're looking at now, since we would be filing 2017 taxes, is you can actually go back to 2014. So that's another great thing about the Earned Income Tax Credit, and let's go over that a little bit. I'll show you the numbers so that you can understand exactly what I'm talking about. So as I mentioned, you can file for the EITC even if you didn't earn enough to file taxes, and you can file even after the tax year has passed, up to three years. So if you have earnings from work, if you file a tax return and you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, you can receive up to 6,318 dollars for 2017, 6,269 dollars for 2015, and 6,242 for 2015, so how wonderful. What a decent amount of money to be able to get back. And I'm going to move a little quickly here just to make sure that we're not going to run out of time. So if you need any more information on the Earned Income Tax Credit or free tax preparation services, you can go to Earned Income Tax Credit. For more information, visit www.irs.gov/eitc, and then you can also learn more by calling the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, VITA, at 1-800-906-9887. You can also visit www.myfreetaxes.com, and then something that we didn't mention but is a wonderful resource is AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, and their phone number is 1-888-227-7669, and during tax season, you can go to AARP and have your taxes done even if you do not qualify as an AARP-eligible individual of 50-plus. And then to contact your local IRS office, you can visit www.irs.gov/help/contact-your-local-irs-office. So now let's talk briefly about some financial tools and services. So when we think about financial tools and services, two very basic things that are wonderful to have are a savings account and a checking account. Saving account allows you to keep your money safe while you save for a goal, and your checking account gives you a place to be able to have your money and have access to it so you can use that money to do things like pay bills and buy things, and people have many choices when selecting a bank. Some banks offer online services, direct deposit, and much more. Bank On programs work with banks and credit unions to make it easier for you to join, and for more information, you can go to joinbankon.org, and to find more information on credit unions in your area, you can go to www.mycreditunion.gov/pages/default.aspx. So we're also going to talk very briefly about credit and having good credit. Having good credit really means that a bank or a business will let you buy an item before you pay for it, and if you have good credit, it's easier for you to get loans at a lower interest rate from banks so that you can purchase things, like a home or a car, and also to pay for those emergency expenses that we talked about earlier. So when we talk about credit, one of the ways that you can establish good credit, or here are several different ways. Paying bills on time is a great way to establish good credit. Limiting applications for a new credit card, keeping old credit card accounts that you've paid off open and not closing them, keeping credit card balances low, and checking your credit score regularly. Those are all very good ways to keeping your credit good and becoming more financially independent. If you'd like more information on credit resources, you can request your free annual credit report annually at www.annualcreditreport.com. You can contact credit reporting agencies to address errors by visiting www.consumerfinance.gov. You can get support in increasing your -- I'm very sorry. You can get support in decreasing your debts and working on your credit by going to www.nfcc.org, National Federation on Consumer Counseling, and you can also ask questions and find answers and helpful information at www.ncua.gov/consumers/pages/default.aspx. Sorry, going a little too quickly there, and I think with that, Brittany, I will turn it back over to you. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much, Nancy, and we have been getting a lot of questions in, and I think one of the number one questions we've gotten is, "How do I know if I need to file taxes if I only receive SSI or SSDI?" >> I'm sorry, I had myself on mute. >> That's okay. >> So the question is, "How do you know if you should file taxes if you are on SSI or SSDI?" Is that correct? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that is correct. >> So rule of thumb is always to report any income that is coming in, and also make sure that you report it on your taxes, and I think I'm probably going to turn this question over to Elizabeth, because I think she's probably more aware of how to answer. I'm sorry. >> So just so I'm clear -- sorry, I've been in the chat box. I super love talking to everyone in the chat box and answering your questions, so I get a little caught in there. But the question is, "How do you know if you have to file your taxes or not?" Is that right? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Great. >> How do I know if I need to file taxes if I only am receiving SSI or SSDI? >> Yeah, and I think it's a little more complicated than we should answer on this call, other than to say there are some things that can impact that. Generally, if you do not make more than 25,000 dollars a year and file as an individual -- or your household income and file it as an individual or if your household income is less than 32,000 dollars per year and you file jointly, you will not have to pay taxes on your Social Security disability benefits, but if your income exceeds those limits, a portion of your disability benefits may be taxable. So I would say it's a really good idea if you're not sure that you visit one of the free tax preparation services in your local community, and the reason why I say that is twofold. One is that it's best to get good information from the people who are providing tax services and not limit yourself to the limited information we're providing on this webinar, but the second reason is that there's other things going on at the free tax preparation sites that might be of benefit to you. So you can get connected to other resources and other things going on in your community, and I personally have volunteered at the tax site here in Washington, DC. It's a really nice experience. People are really helpful. They are audited by the IRS. The IRS checks the tax forms that they file, and they get a really high of how well they do their job, so to me, it's a very smart thing to do and something that I think you'll benefit from doing. >> Wonderful. Thank you, and I'm going to try to get through as many questions as possible. The next one is, "I receive SSI. Do I need to report to SSA that I received money through the EITC, that Earned Income Tax Credit?" >> Great question. So yeah, if you receive SSI or SSI and SSDI, it's always good practice to report all income, so that's either earned income or unearned income, to the Social Security Administration. So I'll try to -- I'm going to leave it there. I can go into more depth, but the general answer is yes, but we know we only have about seven minutes left, so I'll just turn it back over to you, Brittany. >> Sure, and I just want to ask one more question, because we have been getting some questions about credit, which you had talked about before, Nancy. Someone mentioned, "My credit score is not the best because I have school loans I cannot afford to repay. Do you have any suggestions for me on how to repair my credit or where to go?" >> Sure. Well, so even if your credit score isn't great, a good rule of thumb for everybody is to just check your credit report regularly, request a free copy of it, as I mentioned before. One of the things that many of your credit card companies will do is help you set up payment reminders, and sometimes we are really good, but then we get busy and, you know, forget to make a payment. That's really no fault of our own. It's just because life gets so hectic. So setting up those payment reminders or even debiting and paying automatically each month out of your bank account is another good option, and then lastly, a great way to repair credit is simply to reduce the amount of debt that you owe, and you can do that by using the Ticket to Work and other wonderful work incentives to get a job and then pay down your debt. Good question. >> Great answer. Thank you, Nancy, and at this point, I know we've talked about a lot of information. Some of it might have familiar. Some of it might have been new. So Elizabeth, could you just take a minute or two just to help us kind of tie this all together at the end here? >> Yeah, I'd be happy. I'd be happy to help us put this all into context and take a minute to tie it all together. I know the question we posed today is, "Is financial independence possible for me?" and I hope that most of you have answered yes, financially independent may be possible. Of course it's going to take hard work, planning, education, training, and support from Social Security and other resources, but when we put it all together, I think there is a path that we can each set upon to become financially independent. It's going to be important to use some of the resources we provided today and to of course make that connection to the Ticket to Work help line. Are there risks? Absolutely. Each of you know the path that you've been on that there are things that you really need that are critical to making it through your daily life, which is why we hope that you can use these WISE webinars and the information we're providing just to be smarter, and that's based upon what Nancy said about goals, how we want to make sure goals, but also based on the fact that there's a lot of information out there, and it's important to be connecting to high-quality information, and that can start by joining in with Ticket to Work, connecting to the Ticket to Work help line, using them to help you connect to an employment network, an entity that's going to help you with your return to work services, and then also requesting and making sure you have good information around benefits planning. So we know that if you get to know Social Security's Ticket to Work program and learn about Social Security work incentive that these will all help you to earn your way to financial independence. Of course, we mentioned some of the rules, but we want to make that we all remember to follow the rules when we're working within our Social Security benefits, so a couple things to make sure you do is to learn how and when to report your earnings from work to Social Security. That's very important. You want to keep good records. By doing that, it will help you to take advantage of work incentive and avoid over-payments, and take advantage of the resources we've talked about today. Just remember we're here to help you succeed in reaching financial independence. For those of us who work at National Disability Institute, it's what we do every day. We feel very passionate about it, but for each of you in the audience, we know that you have good financial skills, that you're managing a lot with very little income, and that you need some support so that you can return to work successfully, and that's why we feel passionate about the Ticket to Work program and the level of support that you can receive by connecting with an employment network. I just want to take one moment to say one other thing, and that is that we wouldn't spend our time doing this if we didn't believe that everybody who called in today has the skills that it takes to manage their money, to take the next step in calling the Ticket to Work help line and choosing an employment network, and that each of you have skills and talents that we need and that you'll do a great job in employment. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for those closing remarks, and it is so true that everyone is capable of achieving financial independence, and thank you as well to Nancy for sharing, again, that information on setting goals and information about, you know, how do we file our taxes when we have that new money in our pocket from working. Before we close out today, I know we've gone through just an enormous number of resources, and a lot of those have been put in the note section, and many of these have been mentioned before, but a few of the resources again, just to remind you. If you are looking for financial education program that is free and is available in many different versions and languages, Money Smart is an excellent resource. It can be found at www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/index.html, and again, there's lots of different versions of that particular resource. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is another excellent resource, so as you are accessing good and safe information -- as you are accessing new financial products, they are safe and good products and services, and CFPD can really help make sure that you have a good understanding about whether you're applying for a mortgage, or choosing a credit card, or using any time of consumer financial product that you -- -- understand your protections and how to protect yourself, and you can reach them at www.consumerfinance.gov. Another excellent resource is ABLE. I know that we've talked a little bit about ABLE on past WISE webinars, so I won't go in-depth on it very much, but if you want to learn more about ABLE, you can watch the WISE archive copy here. It's available at http://bit.ly/WISEarchives, or you can visit the ABLE National Resource Center at www.ablenrc.org. And we invite you to join us on our next webinar. That's going to be coming up on Wednesday, February 28th, and it will be, as usual, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. eastern time. You can register online at choosework.ssa.gov/WISE or call in at 1-866-968-7842 or, for tele-touch, it's 1-866-833-2967. We've mentioned a lot of information about Ticket to Work and work incentive. If you have questions about them, reach out to the Ticket to Work help line. They're an excellent resource. Elizabeth has mentioned that number and website a few times, but just to repeat it again for you all, you can get more information at 1-866-968-7842 or, for TTY, at 866-833-2967, or you can visit choosework.ssa.gov. There's a lot of different ways you can also connect with us on social media, including Facebook at www.facebook.com/choosework, on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chooseworkssa. If you'd like to watch videos on Ticket to Work on YouTube, follow us at http://www.youtube.com/choosework, or you can follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticket-to-work. And just as a note, Marlene is putting some of those resources into the note section as I'm going over them in case you missed any of those resources. We have answered a lot of questions today, both on the webinar and in the chat. If you have any others, feel free to continue to email them in or to call the Ticket to Work help line, and we also want to hear what you thought of today's webinar, so please remember to take our webinar survey. A link will pop up after the webinar, or you can visit choosework.ssa.gov/surveys/WISE. And we appreciate everyone for hanging in with us. There was just an enormous amount of information to share with you all today. We'd love to stay on and tell you even more about it. There's so much to go over. I want to extend a huge thank you, again, to Nancy Boutot and Elizabeth Jennings for sharing such wonderful information. I want to thank you all for joining us today and for your excellent questions. You all can achieve financial independence, and we hope that 2018 is the year for you to start and achieve that goal. So thank you, everyone, for joining, and have a wonderful start to the year. Thank you.