WISE Ticket to Work Webinar
Achieving Financial Independence with Ticket to Work and an ABLE Account
March 27, 2019

Speakers: Stacey Plizga (Moderator); Marlene Ulisky & Kathleen Bowers (Presenters)

STACEY>> Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s Ticket to Work webinar: Achieving Financial Independence with Ticket to Work and an ABLE Account.

My name is Stacey Plizga, and I am a member of the Ticket to Work Team, and I will be your moderator for today’s webinar. We are so glad that you were able to take the time to spend with us today and learn about work incentive programs and ABLE accounts and how they can help you as you work through your own personal journey to financial independence.

Each of us has our own path to follow, and we hope you will find some information in our webinar today that will assist you in moving forward in the path to employment and economic independence.

So let’s get started by going over some of the functions of the webinar platform so you can interact and get the most of the information that is presented today.

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All attendees will be muted throughout today’s webinar. Thus, when you are presented with the option to join the audio conference, choose Listen Only, which appears at the bottom right corner of the audio menu. Clicking Listen Only allows the sound to be broadcast through your computer speakers or your headphones.

If you are unable to connect to audio with your computer or if you would just prefer to listen to the webinar by phone, you can dial 1-800-832-0736 and then enter access code 4189148#. 

Next we will share some information about webinar accessibility. 

If you need assistance navigating the Adobe Connect, an Accessibility User’s Guide with a list of controls is available at http://bit.ly/adobe-accessibility. This link is also available in the Web links pod at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, and it is titled Adobe Accessibility User Guide.

Real-time captioning is available and is displayed in the captioning pod, which is the box that appears right below the slide that is on your screen right now. You can also access the captioning online by going to http://bit.ly/caption-mar19. 

We are here today to answer questions you have on the Ticket to Work Program and ABLE account, so please send in your questions to us at anytime throughout the webinar by typing them into the Q&A pod. We will direct the questions to the appropriate speaker during the Q&A portions of the webinar, and we will be addressing questions at three different points throughout today’s presentation. So go ahead and send those questions in, and we will do our best to answer as many of them as possible.

If you are listening by phone and you are not logged in to the webinar, you can ask questions by sending an email to Ticket to Work. And the email address is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. And this email address also appears in the Web links pod as Ticket to Work Email.

Another resource available that we think that you will find extremely helpful in connecting to the different resources mentioned today is the Web links pod, which you will find at the bottom right-hand side of your screen. So if you take a look at this, this pod lists all the links to the resources presented during today’s webinar. And to access any of the resources, you will highlight the topic you are interested in, and the one you would like to connect to, and then you will select the Browse To button at the bottom of the pod. And you will be taken to the website that you requested.

If you are listening by phone and not logged in to the webinar or don’t have access to this Web links pod, you can email Ticket to Work, and the email address is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. Or you can reference the confirmation email that you received for today’s webinar for a list of available resources.

Also, please note that SSA cannot guaranty and is not responsible for the accessibility of the external websites.

Today’s webinar is being recorded, and a copy of it will be available within two weeks on the Choose Work website, which can be accessed at http://bit.ly/wisearchives. This link is, along with the other ones mentioned, can be found in that Web links pod that we just talked about that’s in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. And this particular link is titled WISE webinar archives.

We do hope everyone has a great experience on the webinar today. However, if you run into any technical difficulties, please use the Q&A pod to send us a message or you can send us an email at the Ticket to Work email address, which is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov.

As mentioned earlier, my name is Stacey Plizga, and I am a member of the Ticket to Work team. And I’m very excited to be here with everyone today as your moderator. We are delighted to have with us two speakers who will not only share information about Social Security’s Ticket to Work Program, but will also share information about the Achieving a Better Life Experience, or ABLE Act, and an Able Account to assist you in your journey to financial independence.

Our first speaker, Kathleen Bowers, is a licensed clinical social worker who has spent over 15 years helping individuals with disabilities become and stay employed. Kathleen’s passion and success at helping people find jobs has led her to become the current supervisor of Aspire Indiana’s Employment Services Department, which includes the Employment Network Team. Kathleen has proven to be a leader in the field of employment services. So welcome, Kathleen.

Our second speaker, Marlene Ulisky, retired from the Social Security Administration after a 35-year-plus career. After leavings SSA, she worked with the Florida Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to establish the Partnership Plus program under the Ticket to Work Program, and then she was rehired by SSA to conduct training and to assist them with managing critical integrity. At the National Disability Institute, she is part of the Training and Technical Assistance team. She is also a Disabilities Benefits expert with the ABLE National Resource Center.

So we are very excited to have these extremely-knowledgeable speakers with us today to share their experiences and their expertise to assist you with your employment journey.

So once again, thank you everyone for joining us today. We have a very informative session planned where our guest speakers will discuss how ABLE accounts may help certain people with disabilities and their families save for the future while protecting eligibility for public benefits. 

They’ll talk about updates and changes to ABLE programs that may help you save more money.

And, they’ll talk about how an ABLE account and Social Security’s Ticket to Work Program can help you achieve financial independence through work.

Our speakers will then tie it all together and provide additional resources to assist you with meeting your goals.

So it is my pleasure to introduce to you Kathleen Bowers who will talk with us about the Ticket to Work Program. So over to you, Kathleen.

Thanks, Stacey.

KATHLEEN>> So, before we get to the ABLE stuff, we’re going to talk a little bit about Social Security’s Ticket to Work Program. It’s the national program that is to help people that want to get back to work, work on becoming financially independent. This is a choice that every individual beneficiary needs to make for themselves and to figure out, you know, is the work – is work the right choice for you. Social Security has a lot of great resources to help you with that. They even have a work readiness quiz, which is on the choosework.ssa.gov website. So that is something I encourage everyone that I talk to on our employment network to kind of look at or to go over with your employment network is, is work the right choice for you.

A lot of times people are concerned about going to work because they’re worried about losing the benefits. Social Security Ticket to Work Program has done a great job of helping eliminate those fears. So one of the – the benefits of going to work is that you can earn more income. The minute you go to work, you’re not going to lose your benefits, so if you’re working with your employment network or VR agency, they’ll help you kind of go through and make sure you can keep your benefits. Over my 15 years, almost everybody I’ve worked for has come out financially ahead by working and – with their benefits.

The other great thing is you get to meet new people. I have a client who got a job and he met his current wife there. And so whenever I call to check on him, he calls me his matchmaker. So, it’s a good opportunity for you to get out, and to meet new people, and to learn new skills. You know, what do you like to do? How can that translate – how can your hobbies translate into a job? You know, so it’s a great opportunity to – to do all those things. And then the – the best part is gaining that financial independence. Not having to worry about turning paystubs in to Social Security, or who’s going to accept my insurance, who’s not. You know, working towards that, if that’s a goal for you, to get that financial independence. 

So what is the Ticket to Work Program? It’s a national employment program that helps support you in your career development for people with disabilities who want to work. You qualify if you’re a beneficiary of Social Security and you’re between the ages of 18 and 64. And the most important piece for me is that it’s free and voluntary. So, at any time, if you want to try this out and see if this is a good fit for you, you know, you can call your VR office, your employment network, a workforce employment network and see if this is a good fit for you. If it’s not, then you just, you know, pull your ticket back and it’s – it’s not a big deal. You’re not penalized or punished. Social Security just wants to give you the support and the opportunities to work towards that independence if you can.

So what does the Ticket program offer? It offers all kinds of different things based on what provider you pick. There are a few different providers out there. Employment networks. Vocational rehabilitation. The choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp, I also believe it’s in your web links, will help you kind of figure out what are your needs, what are you looking for. Job coaching itself is, you know, if you need help out on the job learning a new skill, maybe you’re having to change careers and – and you’re uncomfortable just jumping in. There are people that can go out and work with you and help you learn the job from the beginning, and that’s kind of an on-site thing. Or even offsite if you’re struggling and you just want to chat with someone about what you need to do.

Job counseling. That’s the time where you sit down and you come up with a goal. What do you want to do? What can you do with your barriers? What are your skills? What are your transferable skills? And so, a professional would sit down with you and help you kind of root through those things and figure out what’s a good fit for you.

Training is provided by vocational rehabilitation or your workforce EN. And that could be something like a – a CNA, you know, to get back into the health field. Or getting some training for driving a truck. Or, you know, whatever it is. They can offer you that. And you would come up with that in your plan for what your goal would be.

Benefits counseling is super important, and you would want to, you know, know how your benefits are going to be affected by working. What kind of paperwork do you need? What kind of programs do you qualify for? So that would be super important to figure out.

Job placement, that’s helping with résumés, helping with interviews. You know, how to find that next job that’s going to be good for your job goal.

How it works. You choose a provider to assign your ticket to. Like I’ve talked about briefly, there’s vocational rehabilitation, employment networks. There’s lots of employment networks out there, so you can interview them and pick the best one for you. And whoever you go with, they’ll meet with you and identify your goals and the supports that you will need to get those goals. So they – they really walk with you hand-in-hand through this whole process to help you meet your goals.

Finding work and reducing, and possibly eliminating, your reliance on your benefits. And, again, that’s part of your goal process that you will, you know, it’s not the first day you go to work you lose everything. So you’ll talk about that with the provider that you work with. But the ultimate goal is – with Ticket to Work – is to try to as much as possible replace your disability benefits with earnings from work.

And so I think Marlene now is going to talk about how ABLE accounts can help with that.

MARLENE>> Okay, thank you, Kathleen. And that you also to Maximus and to the SSA for giving the ABLE National Resource Center the opportunity to talk to you this afternoon about the ABLE Act and how it’s transformed the lives of thousands of people across the country.

We’re going to go through an awful lot of information this afternoon, and I want you to know if you’re hearing this for the first time and you need some time to process the information, you can always listen to this archived webinar on the Choose Work website, or you can find more information about ABLE accounts at the ABLE National Resource Center website. And both of those resources are listed in the Web links pod, and they’re in the Resources section at the end of this presentation.

So what is ABLE? ABLE is the Stephen Beck, Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, and it became law in December of 2014. It was one of the most bipartisan bills in history. The Act actually authorized, but it did not require, the states to establish ABLE programs. And at the present time, there are about 41 states plus the District of Columbia who have up-and-running ABLE programs.

ABLE created a new option for certain people with disabilities and their families to save money in a tax-exempt account. And we’ll talk about these two things shortly. Who are certain people with disabilities? And what are tax-exempt accounts?

But it also specified that any of the money saved in that account can be used for qualified disability expenses. And I’m throwing out a lot of different terms to you, but we’ll talk about all of these as we go on in the presentation.

The qualified disability expenses, you – you – when the money is used for the expenses, you can still maintain your eligibility for most means-tested benefits. Now we’ll talk about that later in the presentation again, what are most means-tested benefits? Because there is one exception and it does have to do with Supplemental Security Income benefits, and we’ll talk about that. We know that a lot individuals across the country who are receiving public benefits live a life of poverty because they can’t save money. Because there’s a fear out there, a fear of losing their means-tested benefits, or benefits like SSI or Medicaid, which are very, very crucial in their life, very important in their life.

So let’s talk next about ABLE eligibility. And to be eligible to open an ABLE account, you have to meet two criteria. One is an age criteria, and the other is a disability requirement.

Now first let’s look at the age requirement. The individual has to have their onset of disability before their 26th birthday. That’s why we’re saying certain individuals with disabilities. Now that’s not to say that if you’re someone out there and you’re listening and you’re 30 years old, or 40, or 50 years old, you cannot open an ABLE account. You can, so long as your disability began before you turned age 26. Now if you or someone out there who sustained or who acquired a disability after the age of 26, you are not eligible to open an ABLE account at this time.

The second prong or rule is that once you meet the age requirement, you have to meet a severity of disability rule or requirement. And you can meet it in one of two ways. The first way is you could be receiving either SSI or SSDI benefits, that’s Supplemental Security Income benefits or Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. Or, you can obtain a disability certification which includes, if you’re not receiving those benefits, obtain the disability certification that has the physician’s diagnosis that indicates that you meet the severity of disability requirement. Now that criteria is listed in the Social Security Code of Federal Regulations, and it’s broken down by body system.

Now, even if you’re not receiving a disability-based benefit from Social Security and you’re listening today, I just want you to know that you may be ABLE eligible even if you’re working. But obviously, this presentation and this webinar is focused more on individuals who choose to work.

So let’s talk a little bit about that disability certification. What is it? And it’s basically a note from your doctor saying that you have a disability and it creates marked and severe functional limitation. And you may say, you know, that’s Social Security language, what does marked and severe functional limitations mean? And it just means severe limitation on the ability to sit, or stand, or walk, or lift, or hear, or see, or bend, or stoop, or perform work-related functions like grasping, and so on.

And you also must meet a duration requirement. Or you must be blind. And when I say duration, what I’m saying is the law says that your disability must have lasted at least 12 months or is expected to last at least 12 months or to result in death.

And what you would do, you would go, and you would obtain this note before opening your ABLE account. And you would just keep it in your own file. You wouldn’t give it to anyone. You wouldn’t have to give it to Social Security or to the IRS, or any one, unless it’s asked for. And then when you go to open your ABLE account, you would just certify, under the penalty clause, under the penalty of perjury, that you obtained this note prior to opening your ABLE account.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about some of the basics. What are some ABLE basics? And when I say ABLE basics, (inaudible) to talk about things that are consistent across the board in all the state that have ABLE programs open. So these are general characteristics across the board.

Now the programs do differ in some other aspects, but these are just the basics across the board.

The first is each eligible person can only have one ABLE account. The ABLE accounts are Section 529(a) accounts under the IRS Code. And they’re similar to other 529 accounts. Now with other 529 accounts, you could have a couple of them, but with ABLE you can only have one ABLE account.

Another basic is the designated beneficiary, and that’s the person who has the disability who is also the ABLE account owner. It gives that person the ability to exercise greater financial independence over the funds. But with that being said, sometimes a person lacks capacity, that means that they may have a legal guardian. What if they can’t open up an account on their own, or what if they need help opening up that account? And there are three types of people that can have signature authority or the ability to exercise control over the account. The first is a parent of a beneficiary. And that’s if they are a minor. The second is the guardian of a beneficiary. And the third is someone who has power of attorney.

Now the account owner, that’s the person with the disability, can give anyone power of attorney, and then you would have signature authority over the account. With power of attorney, I’m not talking about – I’m not saying that you have to see an attorney to establish this power of attorney. Many state ABLE programs actually have the forms that you can download from their site to establish a power of attorney.

So, if you don’t fall into any of those three categories, you don’t have that privilege of having signature authority on that ABLE account. 

The last ABLE basic on this slide is there is no longer a federal residency requirement stating that you must open your ABLE account in the state in which you live. You could establish your ABLE account in any state across the country which has an ABLE program up and running unless there is a residency rule and you don’t meet that rule or live in that particular state. So, for example, I live in Florida. I have a family member with a disability who lives in Pennsylvania. If he wanted to open up an account in my state he could not because in Florida the ABLE program is restricted to individuals who reside or live in the state. There are about 17 states or so that have a rule that says that you must live in their state to open up an account, but most states do not have that rule.

Some more basics, things are consistent across the board. Total annual contributions by the individual and others may not exceed the federal gift tax contribution, which is currently $15,000.00 a calendar year. And that is unless the beneficiary, the account holder – the account owner – is employed. And if they are employed, it’s much higher. And we’ll talk about that in a future slide.

When I talk about contributions to the ABLE account, I’m saying that any person, including the beneficiary, or their family, their friends, or others, can make contributions to that account. The IRS published some rules. And they defined a person to include all of those individuals that I talked about as well as an employer, or a partnership, or a special needs trust. And we’ll talk about a special needs trust a little later in the presentation as well.

As a best practice, we encourage any third party, like family, friends, and others, to contribute directly to the ABLE account by transferring funds directly to that account.

Now the total lifetime contributions may not exceed the state limit for 529 college savings accounts in the state where the ABLE account is established. The states have varying limits across the country for their 529 accounts. In one state in particular it’s $100,000.00. But in another state, I think it’s in California, it’s over $500,000.00. And I believe in Pennsylvania it’s over $500,000.00, too. So if that’s important to you and you’re going to save a lot of money in that account, you may want to investigate that and look at that along with some of the other benefits or some of the other options, that ABLE account.

And we said we’d talk about the ABLE to Work provision. And the ABLE to Work provision was passed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. And it allows ABLE account owners who work, and who have income, to make additional contributions to their ABLE account. And that’s over and above that $15,000.00 limit we talked about. But it’s only if their employer does not contribute to a workplace retirement plan on their behalf.

Now, so how much are the additional contributions? And that would be from whatever is left as shown in the two bullets on your screen. It would be either your gross income for the taxable in, or $12,140.00 if you live in most states across the country. And that’s in the 48 contiguous states. In Alaska and Hawaii it’s a little higher than that. And those limits, they will go up each year. They’re based upon the federal poverty level. So, in effect, what that means to you is, if you earn $12,140.00 or more a year, and you don’t have an employer-sponsored retirement plan, you may have the capacity to actually save up to a total of $27,140.00. And you may say, wow, that’s a lot but I’ll never reach that level, except that you’ve got to remember, too, that your family, friends, or employer can all contribute to this account. It’s a great way to save for your future and plan for your future.

So, we’ve covered a lot of territory already. What is an ABLE account? Who can open an ABLE account? And we talked about some of the ABLE basics. So your next question might be, what money can you save in an ABLE account? And first and foremost is savings from employment. And with this one, I want to emphasize that nothing changes in the way that Social Security looks at earnings or counts earnings. ABLE is not a way to shelter income, but it is a great way, or a wonderful way, to save money for future expenses and they’re not counted as a resource. An ABLE account isn’t counted as a resource. And we’ll talk about the one exception in a little bit.

Also, other money you could save in the account is contributions from an employer. It can be a rollover from a 529 college savings account. Perhaps someone in your family, a parent or a grandparent, established a 529 college savings account for you when you were born or you were a child, and when you grew up you decided that college wasn’t in your future. So, that money actually can be rolled over into an ABLE account. And, again, though, there is the $15,000.00 limit per year. So if there is more money than that in that account, you would be limited to rolling over $15,000.00 a year.

Perhaps you have a family member who isn’t using their 529 college savings account, and they want to do a rollover into your account. That could be done by a brother, a sister, a step-brother or a step-sister, or a half-brother or a half-sister. And those relationships are also defined in the IRS Code.

You can save money, a bequest from a will. Or someone can purchase, the newest option, is called a Gift of Independence. And that’s actually a gift card. If you visit the ABLE National Resource Center website, you’ll find information there on purchasing the e-gift card. And it may only be used, though, for deposit into the ABLE account. You can’t use it for other purchases. It’s kind of a nice way, though, to celebrate someone, or reward someone, or support them for their savings goals.

Other money you can save. It could be gifts from family or friends. They can actually directly deposit that money into your ABLE account. It can be earned income tax refunds. You can actually save Disability Insurance benefits or Supplemental Security Income benefits in your ABLE account. And with some folks you may say, well, I don’t really receive an awful lot of Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, or my SSI benefit is limited to the federal benefit rate of $771.00 a month. But actually, you may be able to save. We’ve had folks write in to the ABLE National Resource Center, and they do have excess Supplemental Security Income benefits left over because they receive other means-tested benefits. Some of them receive housing assistance, or food stamps, or energy assistance. And some folks are a little frugal and they do have some money left over. And you can save that money in an ABLE account.

In addition, or finally, you can save distributions from a special needs trust or a pooled trust. That money can be directly transferred into the ABLE account.

So there’s a lot of different ways to save.

Now, once you’ve saved that money in the ABLE account, how can you use the funds? If you look at the law, you’ll see the term that I used earlier in the presentation, qualified disability expenses, or QDEs. And those are defined as distributions from an ABLE account that are for the benefit of the account owner, so related to the account holder’s disability or blindness, and they help him or her to improve their health, independence, or quality of life. 

And that definition is real broad, and it’s rightfully so because each person’s disability is unique and their needs related to their disability are also unique. So what may be a qualified disability expense, or a QDE, for you, may not be a QDE for me or for another person.

Also, finally, and I should have included it on this slide, but the distributions or the withdrawals do not count as income. If they’re spent in the month received, there actually is no effect on SSI or means-tested eligibility.

Now, the term qualified disability expenses, the law also says that that term should be broadly construed or broadly understood to permit the inclusion of basic living expenses. And it should not be limited to expenses for which there is a medical necessity or expenses that provide no benefit to others in addition to the benefit to the eligible individual. So, for something to qualify as a QDE, you really don’t need a medical doctor’s note saying that something in particular is a QDE. But if you do have that note saying that, it’s important to maintain it should it be needed down the road if something is questioned.

And, additionally, in all cases, you need to maintain receipts for all qualified disability expenses. As an example, I just want to throw out that our former director of the ABLE National Resource Center, Chris Rodriguez, has a brother, PJ, who has a disability. And, PJ takes horseback riding lessons. And for him, it’s a qualified disability expense. And you may look at that and say, how can horseback riding lessons be a QDE? But it’s because in his particular case, in his instance, it helps him with his ability to balance and to walk, and his doctor recommended it. So, something like that could be a QDE. Something like that may be unique.

Another example is an individual who is one of our ABLE advisors. And he and his family were saving for a modified van. Now he’s a young man who doesn’t drive, but he does need transportation, not only to and from the doctors, but he needs a vehicle large enough so that his family can accompany him sometimes when he goes off. Now the vehicle would be used for other things. It would be used for some of his activities which enhance his independence and enhance his quality of life. So the vehicle would benefit not only him, but it also would benefit his family. And in his case also, it is a qualified disability expense.

Now, there are a lot of acceptable qualified disability expenses relating – related to securing and maintaining employment. And examples are shown on your screen. There’s a lot. It could be job coaching. Costs associated with certificates, accreditations, or job-related trainings. Payments for résumé development. Interview preparation. Employment training and support. Transportation to and from your place of employment. And that’s a biggie because that’s a big barrier for many folks who are working or who are trying to maintain their employment. Transportation is something a lot of folks need, particularly if they live in a rural area.

Another is assistive technology. 

But with any of these, before spending money, or spending ABLE funds, as a QDE on any of these items, you may want to check with alternate funding sources in your area to see if someone else can cover the funds – or cover the item of the service. For example, let’s say you’re a person who has an intellectual disability, and you’re working with VR, and you need a job coach. VR will pay for limited job coaching. And if you’re not on the waiver, once that funding is exhausted, you may want to use your ABLE funds for additional job coaching.

As a strategy, again, we at the ABLE National Resource Center always recommend researching alternate sources of funding so that you can maximize the money in your ABLE account.

Although on the last slide we did talk about employment-related qualified disability expenses, I want you to know that there are qualified disability expenses much, much broader than just employment-related expenses. They could be expenses which actually – actually support you in other ways in your journey to a career and into employment.

Qualified disability expenses fall into very broad categories under the law. And they are broadly defined to permit the inclusion of expenses related to each individual’s needs. And you’ll see them shown on your screen.

The first is assistive technology. And I wanted to mention that congress just designated today as National AT Awareness Day. I don’t think they publicized it that much, but it’s the first time that the Association of Assistive Technology and (inaudible) program has had bipartisan support and had a day designated for this. And hopefully the same will happen next year.

But it also can be like education, for tutoring, for private school, post-secondary education, expenses for oversight and monitoring, financial management and administrative services. You may want to pay for a financial advice or financial planning. Health prevention and wellness. It may be medications, or medical office visits, testing, and so on. Housing. Disability-related housing modifications. Personal support services, perhaps for a personal support attendant. And transportation. Not only saving for a vehicle, but also paying for an Uber, or a taxi, or paying the neighbor to take you to and from your place of employment or where you need to go.

In addition, other qualified disability expenses could include basic living expenses, funeral and burial expenses and legal fees. And any other expenses approved by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Remember, it’s real important, though, not to misuse ABLE funds for non-qualified expenses. Something non-qualified may be, I don’t know, off the top of my head I think gambling may be a non-qualified expense. That would help you to avoid tax penalties. And importantly, you don’t want to affect your eligibility or continued eligibility for other means-tested federal benefits.

On this slide, in addition to what’s included about ABLE accounts and special needs trusts, I just wanted to convey something about trusts, and that’s the fact that there’s different types. There are pooled, there’s first-party, third-party and others. And it gets real technical in determining whether a trust is counted or not counted as a resource by means-tested benefits programs. So, what’s important here is that if your trust is properly set up, you can have both an ABLE account and the special needs trust. They’re both tools which contribute – can contribute to your quality of life and enhance your quality of life. They’re different, but they can complement each other when they are set up and they’re used properly. Funds in either one are not considered a countable resource by means-tested federally funded benefit programs like Medicaid or SSI.

We have a great resource document which will be posted very soon on the ABLE National Resource Center website, and it does compare special needs trusts and ABLE accounts. And it does discuss some of the differences that you’ll see here on your screen. There’s a difference in limitations, in contributions, in accounts - ABLE accounts growing tax free, special needs trusts, growth being taxable. Start-up costs are different for ABLE accounts and special needs trusts. For ABLE accounts, they’re minimal. For special needs trusts there may be significant legal fees. And so on.

So I encourage you to visit our website and just check it out. It should be probably posted in the next month or so. 

And with that, I think, Stacey, I am going to turn it over to you.

STACEY>> All right. Thank you so much, Marlene. And thank you to both of you, Marlene and Kathleen, for sharing the information on the Ticket to Work Program and ABLE accounts. You provided a lot of great information about these two programs. And from what I’ve seen, the ABLE account is just a great way to save money. 

So, let’s pause here and take a few moments to address some of the questions that we have received from our audience on these topics so far.

So, Kathleen, I’ll direct the first question to you. How can you find out what types of jobs you can do based on your disability?

KATHLEEN>> I think the best way to do that is to go through, figure out what kind of network is going to work best for you, the employment network or vocational rehabilitation. And when you meet with them for the first time, they’ll do – or they can do – assessments, different career testing to determine what – what you’re interested in and what your barriers will allow you to do, and what your skills are, and what your deficits are to come up with a good job fit. There’s not a canned answer for that. It’s independent of each person, and your Ticket to Work provider would help you come up with those options.

STACEY>> All right. Great. Thank you, Kathleen. And another question for you. You talked about choosing a service provider and assigning your own ticket. Can you share with us how to choose a Ticket to Work service provider for those who are interested in working?

KATHLEEN>> There’s a couple different worksheets on the – the Choose Work website. And the one that I encourage is to look at the Meet Your Team one. And it will walk you through whether you need an employment network, whether you need a workforce employment network, whether you need a VR, WIPA or a PABS (sp). It will talk to you and kind of have checkboxes about what are you looking for in those providers. And once you start with that section, then you can always go to the – the Choose Work Find Help section and kind of start researching individual providers.

STACEY>> Okay. So you actually answered my next question about getting more information about choosing that service provider. 

So, Kathleen, we do have some participants who are interested in the Ticket to Work Program. Can you tell them how to get started with participating in the Ticket to Work Program?

KATHLEEN>> There’s – you can call the Helpline, which is – I can give you the number. It’s 866-833-7842. And they would help you come up with the tools to find the right provider for you. There’s also the choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp web page that will walk you through kind of what you’re looking for, what kind of questions you need to ask to get the best service provider for you.

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you so much, Kathleen. And then, Marlene, I do have a question for you, and then we’ll move on from there. But, Marlene, you had talked about contributions that can be made to the ABLE account. Is there any way to contribute more than 15,000? 

MARLENE>> And there is. If you are a working beneficiary, you can contribute additional money under the ABLE to Work Act. And we talked about what the limits are on that. If you live in the 48 contiguous states, you can contribute, over and above that $15,000.00, an additional $12,140.00. If you live in Alaska or Hawaii, that would be a little higher than that. So you do have the ability to actually save a significant amount of money. And you can save that, though, only if you don’t have an employer-sponsored retirement account. So it’s kind of a great way to save for your future, for your financial future, or future disability-related needs. So, and one of the best ways to get there and to save those amounts is choosing to work.

STACEY>> Thank you, Marlene. And, yeah, what a great way to be able to save money, so the program seems like it would be very beneficial to any of our participants.

So, thank you to both of you for the thorough answers to the questions that we have received thus far – thus far. We do have more questions, and we will get to those a little bit later on. But we are going to stop here, and before we move on, I would like to remind everyone that accessible materials from today’s webinar are available either in the Web links pod that’s on your screen, or you can go to your confirmation email that you received for today’s webinar, or else you can email Ticket to Work at webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. 

And now I’m going to turn things back over to Marlene, who will discuss ABLE accounts and federal benefits as well as tools that are available to assist with the ABLE accounts. So, over to you, Marlene.

MARLENE>> Okay. Thanks, Stacey.

So, we’ll switch gears a little, and we’ll talk about the ABLE accounts and the interaction with federal benefits. And with each federal benefit I’ll be talking about, I want you to know that at the ABLE National Resource Center, we do have a policy document from that particular agency on our website should you need it in the future. You may not, but if you do need it, it is there for your use.

Okay. So let’s talk first about ABLE and Supplemental Security Income benefits. As I said earlier, ABLE funds do not have an effect on most federally-funded means-tested benefits, and when I say most, there could be effects – and effect with Supplemental Security Income benefits. And what the SSI colloquy says is this. The first $100,000.00 in your ABLE account does not count as a resource. And some folks use the words “resource” and “asset” interchangeably. So it doesn’t count as a resource or an asset for Supplemental Security Income benefits. The first $100,000.00 is totally thrown out. It’s disregarded.

Now remember, for those of you receiving SSI, over $2,000.00 saved in a savings account, in a non-ABLE account, it’s counted as a resource. So this, in and of itself, is a huge step forward for someone wanting to move forward, someone wanting to acquire assets, move out of the poverty cycle, and save for some of the items or the services they need to work. And for some folks, that may be a vehicle, or it may be job coaching, or it may be one of the items we talked. Employment-related expenses.

Now if this happens, SSI benefits will be suspended when the balance exceeds $100,000.00 by an amount that causes the SSI recipient to exceed the SSI resource limit, but SSI eligibility will not be terminated. That’s kind of a mouthful. What it’s saying, in effect, is you’re still eligible, you’re still on the SSA computers, but your benefit isn’t payable when you’re in this category.

Now, when you’re in this category, though, what’s really great about it is Medicaid is not suspended. It’s not suspended when that account balance exceeds $100,000.00. So even though you’re not receiving that payment, you’re still receiving your Medicaid. it’s kind of like for those of you out there who have a little more knowledge of working, it’s like 1619(b) where if someone is working, and their benefit has been reduced to zero, they’re working at high, high level, their benefit is reduced to zero and their Medicaid continues. So it’s really a great, great incentive.

The last bullet, though, is real, real important here, where Social Security counts housing expenses as a resource if they are distributed in one month and held until the following month. And what that’s saying is I take out money this month, say $1,000.00, to pay my rent. And it’s for next month. And I don’t pay that rent until next month. So if it’s retained until the following month, it’s counted as a resource. If I pay it this month, I take the money out this month, I pay it this month, then it is excluded. So that’s real important to know.

Now the rule for indefinite SSI suspension. If your ABLE account exceeds $100,000.00 by an amount that causes you to exceed the SSI resource limit, whether alone or with your other resources, other money that you may have in other accounts, Social Security places you in a special SSI suspension during which, again, those SSI payments are just suspended indefinitely, and your SSI eligibility is not terminated. You’re still carried as active on the computers, on the Social Security computers. Your regular SSI eligibility is reinstated for any month when the ABLE account balance no longer causes you to exceed the resource limit and you’re otherwise eligible. That means you need to follow the other rules. So, importantly, we know what happens with SSI. But for many individuals out there, their Medicaid is critical. Once again, ABLE account assets and the ABLE account earnings are not counted in determining your Medicaid eligibility. As we said earlier, ABLE accounts supplement rather than replace benefits. The intent of the law was to cover any gaps in supports or services enabling individuals to maintain their Medicaid while saving for future expenses.

So it’s real important to repeat, you receive Supplemental Security income, Medicaid is not suspended when you meet the requirements for this special ABLE rule for suspensions.

And one other item, which is real important, is the fact that on our ABLE National Resource Center website, again we maintain those policy directives, we maintain the Center for Medicaid – Medicare Medicaid services policy directive to the states. If something should happen and someone in your state misunderstands the rule, you can just download that document, take it to them, and we have seen cases where Medicaid has been reinstated very quickly.

Now, if there are ABLE funds upon the death of a beneficiary, this slide actually is referring to what you probably have heard of as the Medicaid payback provision. And what that is is this. If there is money left in an ABLE account when the account holder passes away, the money can be used to reimburse the state for Medicaid payments which were made after the ABLE account was opened. If you haven’t received Medicaid, you’ve never received it, it’s a non-issue. But if you do receive Medicaid, and if this particular provision is important to you, then you need to do a little planning. 

So let’s say that the account holder does pass away, any money left in that ABLE account can first be used for outstanding qualified disability expenses, perhaps to pay off the accountholder’s home, or their vehicle, or some other payment. But I also should have mentioned on this slide that it also can be used for funeral and burial expenses. And we know – all know how expensive that is in and of itself. So that’s a big expense.

But after those are paid, if there’s any funds remaining in that account, the state has the option, but they’re not require, to file a claim for those funds. Now if the state does file a claim for those funds, the amount paid to the state is actually reduced by any premiums paid to the Medicaid buy-in program under that state’s Medicaid plan. And then once the state is repaid, any remaining funds are transferred to the individual’s estate.

And then, lastly, the state is considered a creditor and it’s not a beneficiary of the ABLE account.

ABLE and SNAP, and SNAP is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as food stamps, ABLE funds don’t affect SNAP benefits. And the link is shown on the screen. It’s also accessed in the Web links pod. If you look at SNAP Eligibility with ABLE Account. There is a letter with the policy from the Department – Department of Agriculture related to food stamps. And it’s stored on the ABLE National Resource Center website. When folks write in to us at the ABLE National Resource Center, we really haven’t seen many problems across the board related to ABLE and food stamps.

With Housing and Urban Development, we know that federal housing support programs are income based and they don’t have resource limits. But things are moving a little slower at the Housing and Urban Development. We haven’t gotten any policy guidance yet on ABLE, but we anticipate that the ABLE funds will be excluded from the HUD determination. But, again, we need that official policy guidance. If and when that becomes available, we will post it on our website under the ABLE Materials Toolkit. It is listed, if you look at the Web links pod, it’s labeled ABLE Materials Toolkit. 

Tax treatment of ABLE accounts. So in addition to everything we’ve talked about today, SSI, and Medicaid, and food stamps, there’s still other benefits, one of which is the tax treatment of ABLE accounts. The ABLE accounts, first of all, are made with post-tax dollars, and the ABLE account holder selects from choices in their program on how to invest their money. They can save it in FDIC accounts, insured accounts. They can choose from various investment options from conservative to aggressive. And based upon their choices, with any account growth, the accounts grow tax free and they are tax exempt. And that’s huge. In many other types of investment accounts, that actually is not the case.

In some state programs there are tax deductions or tax credits for contributions by state residents into their account, into their state ABLE account. In addition, in at least one state, I believe it is Wisconsin, they don’t have an ABLE program up and running, but they do have ABLE tax deductions. Remember, we did say earlier that you can open an ABLE account in any state across the country so long as you meet their residency rule if they have one, and most states do not have one.

For more information, to compare – to look at – to compare and contrast programs, to watch webinars, or to obtain some federal policy guidance from Social Security, or CMS, or Agriculture, visit the ABLE National Resource Center website at www.ablenrc.org, shown on your screen and also shown in the Web links pod.

The next section we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the ABLE tools and some of the resources available. The first is the ABLE National Resource Center Roadmap to Enrollment. And it can be accessed in the Web links pod and the link is also shown on your screen. It was designed, actually, for individuals who are more or less in an entry-level position. They want to know more about ABLE. They’re researching. They’re reading. They want to know what is ABLE, who is eligible, what can funds be used for, how to manage the account, and how to enroll. At each step of the way on this roadmap, there are brief videos that you can watch. And you can hear everything there is – you can hear what there is to learn at each step of the way at each particular point on this journey.

Once you’re enrolled, we have the Roadmap to Independence. You can access the Roadmap to Independence. It’s shown on your screen, but is – it can also be accessed in the Web links pod labeled Roadmap to Independence.

This roadmap is a little more advanced, and it provides you with information on setting your financial goals. Extremely important so that you can map out your financial future. 

When you have goals, just to know, too, that they are subject to change as you age, as your health changes, or as your circumstances change. You may have a goal to begin working, and you may start working perhaps part time. And you find that – that it’s made such a difference in your life, as Kathleen was talking about, not only economically, but socially, if you really want to revise that goal and, you know, move ahead, full steam ahead, and work even more, and we see that an awful lot. This, for example, could provide you with information on building a circle of support. And a circle of support are family or friends or relatives that can help you to get you to where you need to go. I have a family member who is someone with intellectual disability, and he has a circle of support. And in his circle of support is his father, it’s myself, it’s another aunt on his mother’s side, it’s staff from his group home, it’s a support coordinator, it’s the provider. Some of us have a larger role in his life in one area or another. And some have a smaller role. But our purpose is we all have the same goal, and that’s to support him in whatever he decides to do. And it’s made quite a difference in his life.

I want to add that he is a person who works 20 hours a week. He loves working. He does so well. And he actually was offered more hours. And that’s great.

The map also includes making smart financial decisions, monitoring your ABLE account, and finally, celebrating your independence.

So how do you find the ABLE program that’s right for you? If you look at the Web links pod, you’ll see the ABLE State Comparison Tool link. It’s also listed on your screen. We have 42 programs across the country up and running. And it could be a lot of work comparing the different programs, but we’ve really tried to make it easier for you.

You can compare the states using our tool. You can see whether or not there’s a tax deduction if that’s important to you. Whether or not there’s a debit card. Whether there are annual fees. The number of investment options, and so on. And you actually, from that link, can find another link to download a file which contains all of the states and all of the various options. And that’s very helpful, too, if you’re trying to make a decision on what’s the right choice for you.

You can also click on this map on a state, and it actually will bring you to a summary page with a link to the state website. It gives you the state – it gives you the account limit for that particular state if that’s something you’re interested in. And it gives you a summary at a glance of that program.

It also takes you what’s called a state disclosure document. And a state disclosure document tells you everything you want to know about that particular state program. It tells you cost. It tells you investment options. It tells you whether or not they have a general savings account option or a general checking account option. And so – so it’s really, really a good resource out there. We’re seeing at the ABLE National Resource Center that a lot of folks are starting out with just a savings account or a checking account option because some of them aren’t as savvy with investing or investment tools. And that’s great because there are interest-bearing checking account options. So that may be a choice you’d like to make. Until you learn a little more about ABLE accounts or the options available to you, you might just want to open up a regular old checking or savings account there. It’s all about what you’re most comfortable with.

In the course of this webinar, if you didn’t get all your questions answered, please feel free to email us at info@ablenrc.org. Or telephone our Call Center at 1-202-683-6094. The ABLE National Resource Center is a collaborative whose supporters share the goal of accelerating the design and availability of ABLE accounts for the benefit of individuals with disabilities and their families. The ABLE National Resource Center brings together the investment support and resources from national disability organizations.

So, with that, that’s an awful lot of information. Again, Stacey, I think I’m going to turn it back over to you and take a slight break here.

STACEY>> That’s smart. That was a lot of information, Marlene. Thank you so much for sharing that information on federal benefits and ABLE.  You also shared with us some really good tools that can help us get more information on ABLE accounts and how these accounts can help us reach financial independence. So just a reminder to our audience out there that the links to the tools Marlene discussed can be found in that Web links pod if you would like to check that out.

So we are going to take a couple questions here, and, Marlene, you don’t get that much of a break because I’m going to direct this one toward you. And you had talked a lot about ABLE and SSI. How does ABLE affect my SSDI?

MARLENE>> Okay. And that’s really a great question, and I should have mentioned that. It – it actually has no effect on your SSDI benefits because Social Security Disability Insurance benefits are not means-tested benefits. You receive those benefits because you’ve paid into the trust fund or a wage earner, maybe a parent, paid into the trust fund. So there – they - ABLE accounts have no effect on those benefits. But just keep in mind when you are talking benefits, some folks who do have SSDI may have Medicaid, or may receive some housing assistance, or other types of benefits. So it’s just important to know all the facts about ABLE and know that ABLE accounts actually are disregarded, particularly up to two – up to $100,000.00 when someone is receiving SSI. But no effect on SSDI.

STACEY>> Great. Good news. Marlene, you had talked about qualified expenses that ABLE funds can be used towards. Can ABLE – the funds in an ABLE account be used to start a business? 

MARLENE>> And that’s – that’s another great question. And yes, because a lot of business expenses are employment-related expenses. So, ABLE funds may be able to be – can be used to start a business. Right now, I have to say with the Notice of Proposed Rule Making with the Internal Revenue Service, we haven’t received the final regulations yet. And they published that notice, oh, a couple of years ago, so we’re awaiting more guidance from the IRS. So until that comes out, there are some gray areas, so depending upon what the expense may be for, it could be a little bit of a gray area. But I would say in general, any employment-related expenses are generally a qualified disability expense.

There’s a really good webinar that we did in December. It was attorney Jim Sheldon from New York and I did a webinar specifically on qualified disability expenses. We have that webinar archived or saved on the National – or the ABLE National Recourse Center website. And it may be something that some of the folks out there want to listen in to because there really isn’t a lot, well, in writing, on qualified disability expenses. We were provided with those broad categories, but it isn’t broken down into a whole lot of specifics. There are one or two examples, I think, in the Notice of Proposed Rule Making. So I think for folks out there who want a lot more information on qualified disability expenses, particularly as – as they relate to employment, go back and listen in to that webinar. And I think that webinar was about an hour-and-a-half so you’ll get a lot of good information.

STACEY>> Great. Thank you. You talked earlier about withdrawing money from your ABLE account. What happens if you withdraw money from your ABLE account but you don’t spend it within that month?

MARLENE>> Okay. If you withdraw money from your ABLE account and you then spend it within that month, it depends on what the purpose was. If you were using – if you were going to use that money for housing or housing-related expenses, and it’s retained into the following month, it’s counted as a resource. So that means it’s counted along with your other resources or assets. So, you have to be careful on when you take out money for housing-related expenses if you’re retaining it into the next month. We always say that – set up automatic withdrawals and automatic payments because then that way you shouldn’t get into any hot water with expenses like that. 

But let’s say you took out money for something else that is not housing related. So long as you have that money, it’s readily identifiable in an account, you are going to use it for a particular purpose, let’s say for assistive technology or for a vehicle or something related like that, that’s fine. That’s not an issue. It is not counted as a resource. It is never counted as income. 

STACEY>> Okay. So what happens if you make that withdrawal, does it have any effect on SSI? 

MARLENE>> It – it – if it’s a housing-related expense, if that withdrawal is made this month and you’re retaining it into the next month, yes, it could have an effect on SSI. What will happen with that is the SSI payment may possibly be reduced. Or – well, if – if – if it’s retained into the next month, the SSI could possibly stop because it’s counted as a resource. So it’s counted as a resource along with other resources.

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you, Marlene. So, Marlene, what happens if you open up an ABLE account and then you move to a different state? What happens to that account? 

MARLENE>> If you open up an ABLE account in your particular state and you move to another state, you really don’t need to do anything unless there was a federal – there was a residency requirement in that program. Again, earlier we said that you can open up an ABLE account in any state across the country. So if I live in a particular state and there is no residency requirement, I could keep my money in this state in this account, and I can actually move to another state and not move the money.

STACEY>> All right. And another question for you, Marlene. Are there restrictions on how often or how you can withdraw money from your account?

MARLENE>> I believe that some of the state program, that varies with the program. And they – whoever is asking that question, I think they would need to check with their particular program. There are some limits, and I think that varies across the country. There may be a charge for additional withdrawals. It’s important to check with that particular program. It’s important to check out all of these things before you actually establish the account.

STACEY>> Thank you, Marlene. And you had commented that individuals can deposit income into their ABLE account. Does the income deposited into ABLE accounts count toward trial work period or substantial gainful activity amounts?

MARLENE>> Okay, and I’m really glad that you asked that question because we get that question a whole lot at the ABLE National Resource Center. And there is a lot of mis – misinformation surrounding it. In fact, we included it in one of our AchievABLE Newsletters not too long ago as one of the top three questions that come in. ABLE accounts are a way to save money and build assets, but it’s not a way to shield income. So, Social Security looks at earnings the same way they always have. There’s no changes. No changes with trial work period. No changes with substantial gainful activity. Nothing has changed.

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you, Marlene, for providing us with the additional information on the ABLE accounts and answering those questions. We do have some more questions, but we are going to stop here. And we will have one more opportunity in a little bit to address some additional questions, so to our participants, if you have questions and you have not sent them in already, please go ahead and send them in via the Q&A pod.

But before we move on, just a reminder, again, that the accessible materials from today’s webinar are available in that Web links pod or you can look for them in your confirmation email for today’s webinar. Or you can also email Ticket to Work at webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. 

All right. So we will now be turning things back over to Marlene who will wrap things up for us today by talking about Ticket to Work, ABLE, and employment, and how they all work together for you. So over to you, Marlene.

MARLENE>> Okay. Thanks, Stacey.

Okay. So, what’s it all about? I’m going to try to tie all of this together. What do we all want as an American? We all want to achieve, I think, what we all (audio break), and for most of us, to achieve our goals and find the American Dream, we have to save. We have to save to meet our goals. And for many of you listening today, before the ABLE Act was passed, there were limited ways to save money without losing some of your means-tested benefits or important means-tested payments that you actually need to survive. With the ABLE Act, you can significantly improve your financial stability and improve your future. With less financial stress, it’s been – it’s been proven that it improves your physical and your mental health.

With ABLE, you’ll have better choices in where to live. Perhaps you can move out of your current neighborhood into a better neighborhood or a safe neighborhood. Or perhaps you can save for a down payment on a house. And remember, prior to ABLE, if you received means-tested benefits, you were limited to $2,000.00 in savings. With ABLE, you gain a greater level of social, economic participation.

So how do you start your journey and achieve the American Dream? For many of us the first step includes getting a job, working, saving money to achieve our goals. But then, how do we do that? The Ticket to Work Program, along with – with using the Social Security work incentives, can help you to make your journey a smooth one.

The program has it all covered. If you don’t know where to start or you don’t know what to do, perhaps it’s been a while since you worked, or maybe you’ve never worked, but taking that first step is actually key. And what you’re doing, even though you may not think about it right now, by you listening to this webinar and gathering information, it really will help you to understand the program and take that big step in your life. Planning that journey to employment and to financial independence. And once you are working, the ABLE to Work Act allows eligible account holders to work and earn money to contribute and save above the $15,000.00 annual contribution limit when they don’t have an employer-sponsored retirement account. Now that allows folks to save – to save for that American Dream. We know that they actually can save more than $15,000.00 per year when they are working and using the ABLE to Work Act.

So let’s dive into some resources. There are a lot of great resources you may want to review. Some are from the ABLE National Resource Center. Others are on our parent company website, the National Disability Institute. The link to upcoming and archived webinars can be found in the links – Web links pod under ABLE Webinars. The Roadmap to Employment can be accessed in the Web links pod as Roadmap to Employment. The Roadmap to Independence can be accessed – excuse me – in the Web links pod under Roadmap to Independence. The link to register for the AchievABLE Newsletter that I talked about in the Web links pod also under the AchievABLE Newsletter. And finally, the link to the NDI webinars can be found under the National Disability Institute Webinars in the Web links pod.

To find additional information on the Ticket program or to find a provider, such as an employment network or vocational rehabilitation, a benefits planner, or a protection and advocacy agency who can help, visit www.choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp. The Ticket to Work Program, again, is a Social Security employment work program. It will help you to work. Everything you see on the website has been reviewed, it’s been approved by the Social Security Administration, so you can rest assured that that information is accurate, and it is up to date, and it’s there to help you with your goal of achieving financial independence and employment. With the Find Help Tool, you can actually search by your zip code, the services offered, your disability type, language spoken, or provider type to find that provider that you need.

And along with the Find Help Tool, there are an awful lot of resources available when you Choose Work. You actually have a team of – a team at the Ticket Program working for you and trying to get you everything you need to succeed. 

And I think they’ve thought of everything. The website is really great. If you look over your Web links pod, there’s links to the Choose Work blog and Choose Work library. It’s there that you can find tips to inspire you and to motivate you. There’s job searching tips. There’s success stories. There are updates on the Ticket Program. And there’s blogs.

You’ll find things like résumé writing, interview tips, information to help you to understand the program, to understand work incentives. There’s employment resources for veterans. There’s career fair – job fair posts. And there’s other resources that you’ll find extremely helpful.

So, I think at this point I’m going to turn it back over to Stacey to close, and I want to thank you all for listening here today. It’s been great, and I hope you’ve got a lot of great information from the webinar.

STACEY>> Thank you, Marlene, for helping us understand what ABLE accounts are and how they work alongside the Ticket to Work Program to help folks achieve that financial independence.

There are many tools available to assist us with this journey, and the links to these tools, once again, can be found in the Web links pod if you would like more information on any of the topics that either Kathleen or Marlene discussed today.

We do have a few minutes yet, so for the remainder of that time, we are going to go back to the questions that you’ve sent in and see if we can get a few more of those answered for you.

So, Marlene, I’m not really going to give you a break here. Is there a benefit to having a special needs trust and an ABLE account? And is one better than the other?

MARLENE>> Um, there may be a benefit to having an ABLE account and a special needs trust. It all depends upon the individual circumstances. Both are very different, but both are tools which can actually enhance the quality of life for a person with a disability. A – there’s major differences on with an ABLE account you can only contribute up to $15,000.00 per year, and that’s for a non-working beneficiary. But with a special needs trust, there can be more placed into that. There are differences with costs involved for establishing the account. There just are a variety of differences. What’s really important, though, is something that I think I mentioned during the presentation, but I did say that a special needs trust can actually contribute to an ABLE account. And what’s – what is really important about that is, if someone has housing expenses, and they are paying them through their ABLE account, a special needs trust, as a contributor, can actually contribute into that ABLE account with housing costs coming out of the ABLE account. And it would not affect means-tested benefits. Whereas, if the special needs trust itself were paying for this, there could be a change in means-tested benefits. So that’s kind of important.

We did do a webinar in Jan – in January of this year. That was with the Special Needs Alliance, with Steve Dale (sp) from California. And that webinar was wholly on a comparison of ABLE accounts and special needs trusts. That one is also posted to the ABLE National Resource Center website. It’s about an hour-and-a-half long. And it’s really, really a good webinar if you want to learn more and take a little deeper dive into ABLE accounts versus special needs trust.

Again, also, we will be posting something probably within the next month to the ABLE National Resource Center website. It’s a document that we’ve worked on for a while. And it does compare different types of trusts, a first-party trust, third-party trust, pooled trust, and an ABLE account. It compares and it contrasts each of those so that someone can look at those and make the best decision for themselves.

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you so much, Marlene. I’m going to direct my next question here to Kathleen. So, Kathleen, there are many different service providers to choose from with Ticket to Work. Could you give us some guidance on how to know which type of service provider is the right one for you?

KATHLEEN>> Sure. So the first provider is vocational rehabilitation. It’s a state agency. Every state has one. It is for someone who’s going to need some training, education, maybe even work clothes, transportation help, modifications to vehicles, adaptive technology. You know, so people that are going to need a lot of assistance to get back into the workforce.

So then your next provider would be a workforce employment network. And those are – in Indiana we call it Work One. They’re your – your job centers. They also can provide some limited training, you know, work with you on some benefits or some accommodations. They have a little bit more funding.

Then the WIPA Project is mostly for just your benefits. Figuring out – they are the experts on benefits. So if you have a lot of benefit questions and a unique situation, they might be a good place to start.

And then you have your employment networks. And your employment networks are – they do benefits counseling as well. They’re going to do career planning, career counseling. Help you find a job, keep a job. Help you grow in your career.

The difference, for me that I see here in Indiana anyway, is that VR is a lot longer of a process and can provide a lot of different supports. But employment networks are – are a little bit quicker process. There aren’t as many hoops to jump through so you can get started a lot quicker if you don’t need that extra support from the training or the education.

STACEY>> Great. Thank you so much, Kathleen. And I just wanted to mention to everybody that we did have a website up there earlier for the Find Help Tool that would assist you in identifying the service provider. And that is listed in the Web links pod. And the address is https://choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp.

All right. So we are out of time for questions today. And I would like to thank you all for sending in all of your great questions. We hope we provided answers to them for you on this program, and we will talk a little bit later about where you can go should you have additional questions.

To stay on top of what is going on with WISE and the Ticket program, you can subscribe to learn more about the latest WISE webinars. Or you can get email updates about new blog posts as they become available. To subscribe for WISE emails, go to http://bitly – I’m sorry – bit.ly/WISEsubscribe. So I’ll go over that one more time. Http://bit.ly/WISEsubscribe.

To subscribe for Ticket Program updates, you can go to http://bit.ly/subscribeCW. 

So if we were not able to answer your question today, or if you have additional questions that come up, you can reach out to the Ticket to Work Helpline. And that number is 1-866-968-7842. Or for TTY, it’s 1-866-833-2967. 

You can also visit the Ticket to Work website at choosework.ssa.gov.

And you could also stay in touch or connected to us by liking us on Facebook. You can follow us on Twitter. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel. And/or you can follow us on LinkedIn. All of these social media site links can be found in that Web links pod under Ticket to Work Social Media Pages.

So please join us for our next WISE webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. To register online, go to choosework.ssa.gov/WISE. Or you can call 1-866-968-7842. Or for TTY, 1-866-833-2967.

Your feedback is very important to us and it helps us to plan future webinars, so please provide us your feedback and tell us what you think about today’s webinar by taking our survey. And to take the survey, you can follow the link that will pop up after the webinar or you can visit the Ticket to Work website to complete the survey.

So thank you again to everyone for attending today and learning about ABLE and Ticket to Work. Please take the opportunity to reach out to any of the many resources we discussed today and take that next step in your career path. We have resources and support services to help you no matter what stage you are in in your journey.

This concludes today’s webinar. Thank you.