Can You Work While Receiving VA Disability Benefits?

However, veterans can make various mistakes while receiving VA disability benefits that may jeopardize their rights to financial assistance. Veterans who receive VA disability benefits may wonder if they may adversely affect their rights by continuing to work or returning to the workforce after receiving a disability rating. 

Understanding VA Disability Compensation

The VA provides monthly tax-free payments to veterans who have service-connected health conditions that impair their social or professional life. VA disability benefits differ from VA pension benefits, which certain low-income wartime veterans and their surviving dependents can receive. The amount of a monthly payment for VA disability benefits depends on a veteran’s disability rating and the dependents they have in their household (e.g., spouse, parent, children). Specific disability ratings may also qualify veterans for programs that provide higher benefit amounts, such as TDIU. 

Working with a Standard Disability Rating

Veterans who receive benefits based on their scheduled rating (0 to 100 percent) usually can work without immediately affecting their disability benefits. However, working with a high disability rating, such as a 100 percent rating, may suggest to the VA that a veteran has a higher level of functioning than initially determined. When the VA believes that a veteran’s condition has improved, they may conduct a reevaluation of the veteran’s disability rating (unless the rating has become “static,” which occurs when the VA has continuously rated a veteran’s condition at or above a certain rating for 20 years).

Thus, veterans usually can work while receiving benefits based on their scheduled rating. Even veterans with high-rated conditions may retain the capacity to perform part-time or flexible work. 

Working While Receiving TDIU

The VA operates a special program called Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability (TDIU), which allows veterans with specific disability ratings to receive benefits at the 100 percent disability rating if they cannot work due to their health condition. When a veteran receives TDIU status, the VA considers them unemployable due to the effects of a service-connected condition. As a result, a veteran receiving TDIU benefits usually cannot engage in substantial gainful employment. However, veterans may sometimes engage in marginal employment, such as odd jobs or a sheltered work environment, while receiving TDIU benefits. Nevertheless, working while on TDIU risks termination of benefits at the 100 percent disability rating, reducing the veteran’s benefits to their scheduled rating. 

Other Considerations: Self-Employment, VA Pension, and SSDI

Other sources of income may affect a veteran’s VA benefits, such as:

• Self-employment: A veteran who maintains self-employment while receiving TDIU benefits or benefits at a high schedule rating may raise questions about whether the veteran’s work qualifies as substantial gainful employment, depending on the level of control they have over their business or the amount of income they receive. 
• VA pensions: Veterans who receive a VA pension may lose their benefits as eligibility for those benefits depends on meeting strict income and asset limits. Working and earning income can put a veteran over those limits and disqualify them from a VA pension. However, a disabled veteran would still retain their disability benefits. 
• Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI): Veterans who receive VA disability benefits may also qualify for SSDI benefits from the Social Security Administration. However, qualifying for SSDI benefits includes not engaging in substantial gainful employment.

Veterans who experience a change in their employment status while receiving VA benefits should report those changes to the VA and consult an attorney about their rights and options. 

Contact a VA Disability Lawyer Today

After the VA approves you for disability benefits, an experienced VA attorney can help you understand your rights and obligations while receiving benefits, including whether you can work without jeopardizing your benefits. Contact Veterans Benefits Law Group today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a VA disability lawyer to learn more about working while receiving benefits.