In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, an additional component must be satisfied (CSRS is exempted): filing for Social Security Disability benefits.
In doing so, various factors need to be taken into account: Whether the Federal or Postal employee intends to work at another job while receiving FERS Disability Retirement annuity; the chances of actually succeeding in applying for SSDI; and further, a future consideration — if one gets approved for SSDI and FERS Disability Retirement, but later is dropped from the Social Security annuity, will the Office of Personnel Management recalculate the FERS Disability Annuity?
This is a question which has been appeal to the Full Board of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and thus far, the Full Board has ruled in favor of OPM, that OPM’s interpretation of the statutes, rules and laws governing SSDI/FERS Disability Retirement offset is “reasonable”, where loss of entitlement to the former does not require recalculation despite the fact that the former Federal or Postal employee no longer receives Social Security Disability benefits.
An appeal is likely to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The bright spot is that there was a dissenting opinion by one of the Board Members.
Fortunately, most people do not qualify for SSDI, anyway, and so it does not widely impact most Federal or Postal employees who file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS. Information and updates to follow.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability & SSA Social Security Disability Benefits | Tagged: applying for federal disability, beware of opm's policies before appealing ssdi denial, civil service disability retirement, disability retirement for federal employees, disabled federal employees applying for ssdi, fdr and ssdi offset or interaction, Federal Disability, federal disability law blog, federal disability retirement, federal offset disability annuitant, fers disability and social security disability insurance ssdi, FERS disability retirement, fers retirement social security, if you can use social security disability in your opm disability claim, law firm representing clients in opm disability law all across america, legal representation for injured federal workers, offset between social security and opm disability, opm disability benefits offsets with other benefits, OPM disability retirement, opm disability retirement offsets, OPM First Stage Disability Application, opm social security, opm ssdi offset, opm's strange policies with former ssdi recipients, opm's unfair handling of former ssdi recipients, postal and social security disability, Postal disability, postal service disability retirement, the latest information on the ssdi and opm disability offset, the opm's refusal to reinstate full opm disability retirement, the upsetting opm/ssdi offset, USPS disability retirement, what happens when you are you are no longer ssdi recipient, what's the offset between opm disability and ssa disability?, what's the social security offset in federal disability retirement? | Leave a comment »
OPM Disability Retirement 