>> so today everyone is in listen only modeand that way we'll be able to make sure that we get to your questions in a good manner.so, if you're having any audio issues we ask that you make sure your speakers are turnedon and your volume is turned up or if you're listening on a headset just make sure thatthat's actually plugged in. if you are not able to listen on your computer or you donot have sound capabilities, you're just having technical difficulties you can certainly dialinto our toll-free number. that number today is 1-800-832-0736 and the access code is 8458462.and again that's how you dial in using your phone. we're going to talk a little bit aboutwebinar accessibility. this is very important for us. we know that people have differentvarying accessibility needs so feel free to
let us know if you have any suggestions ortips for us as we start to make these presentations as accessible as possible. real-time captioningis provided during this webinar. you can access our captioning pod which is in the lower right-handcorner of the webinar platform. you'll see it's called closed captioning and it doeshave some streaming text right now. if you would like to access the captioning onlineyou can do that by visiting the following website, www.captiontext.com/ client/sn.aspx?customerid=846*eventid=2884257. that sounds great. it sounds like we might have figured out how to turn offthose noises. so, thank you for bearing with us on that. in reference to the captioninglink i would also like to point out another pod that's on your screen, which is calledresources and links and this pod is where
you will find that captioning link but alsoa couple of other links today. we have our links to social security's website which willbe referenced throughout his presentation. we also have a link to saved materials, whichare available in accessible pdf and [inaudible] main document. we will be accepting questionsand answers today. to ask a question we ask that you use the q&a pod which is on the upperright-hand side of your screen. and we'll be looking at those throughout the presentation.please do keep in mind that there are a lot of people attending today's webinar so wemay not be able to get to everyone's questions. if you're listening by phone and you're notlogged into the webinar console you can email your questions to webinars@choosework.net.please note that this webinar is also being
recorded and the archive will be availableon the choose work website which is www.choosework.net. if we're not able to get to your questiontoday we do recommend contacting the call center and that information will also be availableto you at the presentation and we'll get to that contact information a little bit later.bear with me for just one second. my apologies. we are playing around with a little bit ofnew technology today. so for technical assistance if you experience any technical difficultiesduring this webinar as we've had a bit of a rough start, i do ask that you use the q&abox, not the chat box, my apologies, to send a message to our host nakia matthews. sheis also available by email at nmatthews@ndi-inc.org. so to review today's agenda i have the responsibilityof welcome and introductions. i am jayme pendergraft
with ndi consulting. and we are joined todayby elizabeth jennings from the national disability institute. she is going to talk to us a littlebit about what financial independence actually is and some of the resources that you canaccess on your journey to financial independence. we'll then be joined by marlene ulisky whois going to talk with us about social security disability benefits. she's going to explainwork incentive information and will also be around to take your questions about any ofthose benefits and work incentives information. and then elizabeth will come back and talkto us about some more resources that are available out there once you've started working andas you begin to save. then you'll hear from me again with some other resources and thenthe entire team will be available to answer
all of your questions and answers. so nowi'm going to turn it over to elizabeth to talk about what financial independence actuallyis. elizabeth jennings is the deputy director of the national disability institute. sheis a national trainer on social security benefits and asset development strategies for peoplewith disabilities and she has a lot of experience talking about this subject and we are thrilledto have her as our guest presenter today. so, with that elizabeth please take it away. >> thank you so much jayme. good afternooneveryone. it's really exciting to be with you. there's over 300 of you on the line today,so every beep was the new person joining. and i think today's conversation is reallyabout coming to a point in time where you've
decided that some of the things you're doingcould use some fine tuning, much like the webinar platform and so it's always goingto be a little bit rocky to start, but in the long run it's going to be much better.so i'm very excited that you're all here and i just want to give you each a round of applausefor taking this first step of coming on and learning a little bit about financial independenceand some of the strategies that you really may not have known about that are availableto you. so when we say financial independence we know that it's very personal and individual.and it's about being able to support yourself to meet your wants and needs and that's whatyou define for yourself. it's also being able to make choices and have options about whatyou want to buy or not buy, where you live,
what you do with your free time. and for manyof you on the line it means not being limited by your social security disability benefitsand possibly to the level that you're able to working your way off cash benefits, againas you're able to. so many of you may be asking is this really possible for me. and todaywe're going to give you an overview of several programs, services and even work incentivesthat you can use to improve your financial independence and help yourself make a planand get on the road to having more of the financial life that you probably planned forat one point or that you'd like to start planning for now. there's a lot of tools out thereto support you and in this diagram you have just some of them. you can see that there'swork and unfortunately it's really hard to
improve your financial independence if workisn't a component of your plan. you have to have some way to balance out the kind of incomegap that you're likely experiencing. and for folks who are receiving ssi or ssdi as a goodmajority of you on the webinar today are, that can feel risky. so we're going to takesome time to talk to you about the work incentives that are available to you to support you asyou make that transition to work and the ticket to work program, which can be a pathway towork that you may or may not fully, fully understand. we're going to start off by talkingabout s.m.a.r.t. goals. and this can help you do something that you're striving to attain.you know it can be really hard to stay motivated. many of us understand this through dietingor through anything in life that we've tried
to do. if you don't have a really clear goalit can be easy to become kind of disheartened. so we're going to talk about how to set thosegoals and then how to employ some of the strategies that are available like budgeting, banking,credit, the earned income tax credit, which can give you money back for having gone towork and individual development accounts, which are matched savings accounts that areavailable in communities all across the country. so how do you get started? well we think agreat first step is to set a goal. and this will give you something to focus on and worktowards. by creating s.m.a.r.t. goals for yourself and we'll go over in just a second,you can make your dream of financial independence a reality and you can have this very measurableway that you're going to approach it. so let's
talk a minute about s.m.a.r.t. goals and whatthat means. well s.m.a.r.t. is an acronym so it means having a specific goal, a veryprecise goal. so for some of you on the line this can be as simple as i would like to havemore nutritious food for my family or i would like to make sure that i have reliable transportationthree days a week at the cost of $20 per trip, whatever it is. you want it to be somethingthat's precise. it may be bigger. i need assistive technology and i want to participate in anassistive technology program. it may be even bigger that you want to start planning fora larger financial goal like support yourself or a family member to go to college or purchasinga home. whatever your goal is it should be specific to you and you want it to be somethingvery precise. just saying i want to have more
money isn't really precise enough. you alsowant it to be measurable. you want to have ways that you can know that you're workingtowards your goal. so, a measurable goal may be i'm going to save $50 per month or i'mgoing to save five dollars per week or i'm going to reduce the amount that i spend bya certain amount of money. you want something that's measurable so you can help yourselfkeep track of that and know, be able to feel really proud of yourself when you hit thosepoints. you also want to make sure it's attainable. you know we'd all love to be a millionaire.is that really an attainable goal? for some of you maybe. maybe it is in the long run,but you want to make sure that it's going to be an attainable goal. and you want itto be realistic and to me realistic is more
about is it something that you really want?is it something that you're going to continue to work towards, because if it's not somethingthat's going to ultimately bring you joy, meet your needs, you're not going to staymotivated and keep working towards it. and then you want to set a date for achievingyour goal. i know for myself if the date is too far out i tend to either forget or i don'tfeel so motivated by a long-term, a long timeline. i need something that's more quick. so i liketo have a monthly goal and then you can build those months towards this larger timelinethat you have. so now that you have a goal you would like to identify money that youneed to reach that goal. and there's a few ways that you can identify this money thatwe want to talk to you about today. one is
cost savings, another is money that's owedto you and the third is earned income. so let's explore each of these. so one of thefirst things you can do is create a budget. and this can help you make the best use ofyour money and help you reach your goal. now i want to be thoughtful to say i know thatmost of you on the line know exactly where every penny goes. so a budget is not alwaysfor understanding where your money goes. but it can help you to be able to see everything,so a lot of us know where our money goes but we don't document it. we don't track it withpen and paper. also we may know where our money goes but we haven't thought about arethere ways that we can change up some of this or are there other members of the family thatwe can engage in this to kind of get everybody
on board towards this bigger goal. so a budgetcan have a lot of uses. it can, primarily it can help you to really take a look at wherethe money is going, whether or not there's some room to move things around and it doeshelp a lot if you also put down within your budget kind of when things are due. so ifyou have all of your money coming in, say you're on ssi and it's coming in at the beginningof the month this can help you look at how much money is going out right away at thebeginning and let you see how much you have to get through the rest of the month. it cangive you a good idea of exactly what's going on and how you're going to think through settingaside this additional income towards reaching that goal. if you've never done a budget,which a lot of americans haven't there are
a few places that you can go to create a budget.one is your local center for independent living. so every community has a center for independentliving and they are there specifically to support individuals with disabilities in livingindependently. and budgeting is a big part of that. so you can find the location nearestyou by going to www.ilru.org/htlml/ publications/directory/index.html. and remember these slides are going to bearchived and available for you so you don't have to get down these links right now. andthen there's a couple of resources that you can also go to online if you'd like to thinkthrough doing this yourself. one is called money smart. the fdic, that's the group thatinsures our money when we invest it in banks and other protected entities. fdic has puttogether really great financial education
that walks you through how you can do severalthings around building your financial capability. and that's kind of your ability to understandyour money and make good financial choices. and they have all of this available to youonline. so you can check out money smart at www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/index.html.and again these slides are going to be available to you. and then national disability institutewe put together a zero-balance spending plan. we made this as a self-paced learning course.it's completely free to you. you can locate it on our website, actually on our elearningplatform at ndi.elogiclearning.com. and when you go in there there's a few self-paced learningcourses. you're welcome to take any of them that interest you. but the zero-balance spendingplan goes through all of the different types
of income you have, all of the different typesof expenses. it gives you a lot of tips on cost savings strategies and how to engageyour whole family in working towards a collective goal so you're not the only one that's kindof focused on the money and how to spend less. so these are some great resources that youcan use for budgeting. another place that folks tend to spend some money is in theirfinancial services. and you'd be really surprised to know that for individuals with disabilities.over 40% either are unbanked or underbanked meaning that they have no checking or savingsaccount or they do have a checking or savings account but they are also using other morepredatory financial services. so i really want to encourage you to think about yoursavings and checking accounts and if you don't
have one, think about opening one. havinga savings and checking account with a bank or a credit union makes sure that your moneyis safe and you're going to need that to have a safe savings account to save for your goal.and for a checking account it ensures that your money is safe while also giving you quickaccess to your money to pay for bills, to buy things and to know that you have a financialinstitution that's also there to support you. and i know that that may sound odd to someof you. your relationship with a bank or credit union may not have always been that greatbut as you gain in your financial capability, you know as you start to save towards a goal,maybe pay down some debt, build your credit which we're going to talk about in a few minutes,it's only if you have an established relationship
with a bank or a credit union that you'rereally going to have that pathway to a loan or you know other things that you may needto increase your financial mobility to help yourself move forward in your financial life.so you have a lot of choices when it comes to opening a bank account. so we wanted togive you a couple of programs that you can check out and they can help you think throughsome of the banking needs that you may have as well as who's the right bank or creditunion for me. so in many areas across the country there's bank on programs that workwith banks and credit unions to make it easy for people to engage in joining a bank andthat's www.joinbanon.org. now if you are more interested in a credit union you can finda credit union in your local area by visiting
www.mycreditunion.gov. whether you join abank or a credit union is really your own choice. if you're somebody who has had challengesin banking in the past maybe due to a loss of income you had checks bounce and thingsof that nature and you're having a hard time joining a bank, a credit union may be a betteroption for you. they have programs that allow you to rejoin them at the financial institutionand they also have some really great programs to help you build credit slowly. so a creditunion can be a great option. i also want to take one more minute on banking to say i knowthat if you're on the line and you are receiving ssi or ssdi you may, you either have yourcheck direct deposited or you receive it on a prepaid card. and there's nothing wrongwith a prepaid card. that prepaid card may
work great for you. that's awesome. but ifyou're starting to think about moving forward in your financial mobility, meaning you'regoing to start to think about having some kind of a loan, then it's really importantto make sure that you also have a banking relationship. so you don't have to give upthe prepaid card that you're benefit, that you receive your benefits on, but you maystill want to think about opening a bank account so that you are going to have an establishedfinancial relationship that you can lean on in the future when you need to. so we talkedabout this for just a second, but let's go a little bit deeper into credit. credit isanother tool for becoming financially independent. it's really your reputation as a borrowerand having good credit means that banks and
businesses are going to let you buy an itembefore you pay for it. and if you have good credit it's easier to get loans from the bankfor large items like a home or car and to pay for emergence expenses. you know anotheropportunity to build credit is through assistive technology loan funds and if you have an assistivetechnology need you do want to start thinking about is that something that you could do,participate in a loan fund and think through, sometimes with those funds, what are someways to build my credit to make sure that i can participate in that opportunity. soif you want to learn more about credit and most of us that live here in america we don'tknow a lot about our credit, but there are some credit resources that you can use. youcan use free annual credit report. i'm sorry
you can pull your free annual credit reportto see what's on it. and you can do that at www.annualcreditreport.com. now i know you'veseen commercials for freecreditreport.com. that's not actually the one that does thefederal government kind of sponsor i had in mind. the one that you want is annualcreditreport.com.and this will not give you your credit score, but it will let you look to see what's onyour credit report. are there errors? are there things that might be driving your scoredown and things that you can contact the different bureaus to, bureaus credit bureaus to havefixed. also you can talk to credit reporting agencies to address these errors. or if youhave a hard time with that you can visit www.consumerfinance.gov with questions. i myself have had to fix errorson my credit report and it can be a little
bit tricky. so you, please don't hesitateto reach out to consumerfinance.gov with questions. they also have a place on their website whereyou can let them know that something's not working. you can let them know that a differentcredit bureau is not being responsive or that you're having a hard time getting somethingaddressed. and then a big part of credit is having debt. so when we have debt or sometimesit's credit card debt, that's very common, we may have a loan that we're not able torepay. we may want to consider getting some support in ways that we can decrease our debtand over the years credit counseling has kind of gotten a bad name. but there's the nationalfoundation for credit counseling. it's nfcc.org and they are a reputable non-profit organizationthat you can turn to for support in just looking
at financial education, getting some supportin ways to decrease your debt and that in turn will help you to work on your credit.we partner with nfcc.org here at national disability institute and so i want you toknow that they're a reputable organization that you can turn to and you don't have toworry that you're going to be put into the hands of a predatory organization. okay, sowe've looked at how we're going to do some cost savings by looking at our budget andour credit. now let's look at how you might get some money back to you and that's throughthe earned income tax credit and that's through, comes from the irs. so what the irs does isthey give you a tax credit for working. the earned income tax credit is a tax credit forlow to moderate income workers ages 25 to
64 or 18 to 54 if you have a qualifying child.it's kind of been a myth over the years that you have to have a child to claim the earnedincome tax credit. it's not true. you only have to have a child, qualifying child ifyou're under age 25. you can file for the credit even if you didn't earn enough to requireyou to file taxes. so a lot of people who miss out on the earned income tax credit arefolks who didn't have a tax liability. they say and maybe one of you on the line is likethis. you look and you say i really don't owe enough that i have to pay taxes. i didn'tearn enough that i have to pay taxes so i'm not going to file. but i want to encourageyou to file because you are the exactly the target market that may be eligible for theearned income tax credit. if you haven't taken
the time to file over the past few years youcan file and do back filing for up to three years back so that you can get more of a credit.using the earned income tax credit you can receive up to $6,269 this year. it was a littlebit less in previous years. it tends to go up each year and that's money that you willreceive because you worked and you earned up to a maximum amount and you filed yourtaxes. very, very important that you filed your taxes. if you are not sure about howto file your taxes or you'd like some support, there's multiple entities that can assistyou at that. there's the volunteer income tax assistance program, which you can callat 1-800-906-9887 called vita site. these are available in almost every community andthey will do your taxes for free. the american
association of retired persons (aarp) theyalso provide free tax preparation and they're available at 1-888-227-7669. and you can alsovisit the irs website at irs.gov/eitc to learn more. i do want to take a moment to make sureyou know that your earned income tax credit, your tax return, your child care tax credit,none of those count against any federally funded public benefits. so the income you'llreceive on that count against your ssi, your ssdi, youre medicaid, your medicare, yourfood stamps, your tanf, any of those programs. and it will count as an asset for 12 monthsfrom the time that it's deposited. so earned income tax credit can be a great opportunityfor you to get some money back because you took the risk and you went to work. alright,i'm going to give it back to jayme for some
information on your disability benefits andwork incentives to help you achieve your financial goal. >> thank you so much elizabeth. and i am actuallygoing to hand it right over to marlene ulisky, excuse me. marlene works with social securityfor 35 years and she is an expert in disability benefits programs and she is currently workingwith ndi consulting in helping some folks navigate complex benefits issues. so she isa fantastic presenter who will be joining us today to talk about those disability benefitsprograms and work incentives. so marlene, take it away. >> great thank you jayme. thanks for moderatingthis afternoon and i'd like to thank my other
colleagues from ndi who are working behindthe scenes and thank elizabeth for sharing such valuable information. and i also wantto thank [inaudible] from social security for the opportunity to share information thisafternoon. before we get started on this portion of the presentation on ssdi and work incentivesand how work can help you to achieve your financial independence goal last but not least,i want to join elizabeth in thanking you for attending and congratulate on taking thisbig step on the road to financial independence. as elizabeth said, if you're participatingin this webinar today, chances are real good that you're either receiving a benefit underof the programs shown on your screen or you work for an agency which provides assistanceor services to individuals with disabilities.
but in either case, it really is a big stepin the right direction. now the social security disability [inaudible] supplemental securityincome program are two of the largest programs that provide assistance to people with disabilities.but in both programs we know that many of you out there are very limited in achievingyour financial independence goals if you rely on the benefits alone. and we know that insome cases benefits barely meet your daily needs let alone allow for disposable incometo reach those goals or other goals. think about supplemental security income alone.we know that the maximum amount an individual can receive in a state without supplementationis $733. now i don't know about you, but $733 doesn't go very far for basic necessities.think about the grocery store alone and how
much you spend there. so elizabeth said, inorder to meet your financial independence goals we look, we need to look at some otherthings other than just benefits, like working. so we'll talk about that and how you can achieveyour goals. but first before we do that we need to build a little foundational knowledgeof the social security benefit programs because it's really vital that you know under whichprogram you are receiving a benefit. and we'll talk about some of the common work and a keyprogram, the ticket to work program which actually is your pathway to work. so you cansee on your screen social security disability insurance benefits or ssdi and it actuallypays benefits to you as an adult and to certain members of your family if you apply for thebenefit and if you meet all of the rules.
so in addition to having a disability, oneof the primary rules is that you need to meet an insured status requirement. and what thatmeans is you must have worked long enough and recently enough and paid fica taxes orsome folks call them payroll taxes. now ssdi can also pay benefits to what's called a disabledadult child. and that is a person who became disabled prior to the age of 22. now disabledadult child is [inaudible] who had a parent and is either receiving a disability benefitfrom social security or retirement benefits from social security or is deceased and wasinsured. now, there's no income or resource requirements under this program. and in mostcases and for most people medicare comes along with this benefit after a 24-month waitingperiod. now if you're not sure what type of
a benefit you receive an easy way to knowthat you're receiving this type of a benefit is when you receive your benefits. if it ison the 3rd of the month or on a wednesday, that would be the second, third or fourthwednesday of the month it's likely you're receiving an ssdi benefit. now the other programunder which social security pays a disability based benefit is ssi or supplemental securityincome. so if you have a disability and you haven't worked much during your lifetime ormaybe you have little or no paid work history or maybe you have some gaps in your work historyor your employment and you don't meet that insured status requirement, you can actuallyqualify for benefits under this program if you have limited income and limited resources.because ssi is a needs based program, it's
needs tested and it's meant for people withlittle or no income or few resources. now think about it for an individual the resourcelimit is $2000. in most states ssi pays up to $733 per month for an individual. and inthis program and in most states medicaid eligibility automatically comes with ssi eligibility.now one way of knowing whether or not you're receiving this type of benefit again is whenyou receive the benefit. if it's on the first of the month you're likely receiving an ssibenefit. now in addition to these i'd like to add some of you listening today may actuallyreceive benefits under both programs or what's called concurrent or concurrent benefits ssdiand ssi. an individual may possibly qualify for both benefits if their ssdi benefit islow enough that social security can supplement
their benefit with supplemental security incomeas long as they meet the income and resource requirements and the other rules of the ssiprogram. so some of you out there actually may have both medicare and medicaid. now inthis next segment we're going to talk a little bit about work incentives and on this slidewe see ben. and we've seen been in prior work incentives seminars or webinars. and ben isactually holding a sign which says work incentives and he is smiling because he just learnedhow they can help to gradually become independent and self-supporting. now you may ask thoughwhat are work incentives? now work incentives are actually special rules in place undersocial security which allow individuals receiving ssdi benefits or ssi or both to test theirability to work and to become self-sufficient.
with using, by using the work incentives inmany cases an individual can still receive a cash benefit or a portion of their cashbenefit and continue their medicare or their medicaid. now with many of the work incentivesthey're different for the different programs and there are a few that are the same forboth programs. but all of them allow you to do some amazing things to help you to reachyour goal. and you'll see on this screen you can reach the training for new skills or youcan improve the skills you already have or pursue an education or you can try just differentjobs and test your ability to work without fear of the loss of your cash benefits oryour medicare or your medicaid. you can start a career and gain confidence. now shown onyour screen are six of the most common work
incentives under social security and all areextremely powerful tools for you to use to become financially independent. and we'llgo through each of them and i'll tell you a little bit about each of them. they're allwonderful. the first one you see on your screen is the earned income exclusion. and that allowssomeone receiving ssi to keep more of their earnings when they work. now a little earlierwe talked about ssi being the means tested program and we said that other income andresources are counted or considered. but the great news with the earned income exclusionby using it after social security applies disregard it divides earnings by half andcounts only the remainder when they figure the ssi payment amount. when the calculationsare done you'll have more money in your pocket
by working than by not working. and thereis an added bonus and you don't often hear about it. that added bonus is this. rememberwe talked a little bit earlier about paying fica taxes or payroll taxes and i know someof you out there may be saying i'm paying taxes. how can that help me to achieve financialindependence? [inaudible] when you hear elizabeth talking about the earned income tax creditearlier and how it can really help. just by working did you know that you will be accruingcredits or credits of coverage toward becoming entitled to benefits under the program, thessdi program? and by working you're not only earning more money now to meet some of yourgoals, but you're also planning ahead for your financial future. it's an unexpectedbonus. the second most common, or the second
common work incentive shown on your screenis protection from medical continuing disability reviews. now as you probably know after yourdisability insurance benefits claim or your ssi claim was approved you're subject to theperiodic medical reviews and they're conducted either every year or every three years, fiveyears or seven years and every three years is actually the most common. but for thosefolks who are actually knowledgeable for the ticket to work program for those folks betweenthe ages of 18 and 64, they can actually use their ticket and prevent their regularly scheduledmedical reviews. now that's almost too good to be true. but the medical reviews are actuallysuspended when they're using the ticket. and when i say using the ticket what i mean bythat is it's assigned either to an employment
network or to vocational rehabilitation andyou're making kind of like progress towards your role. and that's really a great protectionfor folks who actually, for folks who are actually working and think that social securitymay think by them working they're no longer disabled. another very valuable work incentiveshown on your screen is the trial work period. and that's available to individuals on the[inaudible] and that includes disabled adult children. and that allows a person to testhis or her ability to work at any level without it affecting the cash benefits or medicare.now the earnings potential with this particular work incentive is unlimited and it's a fantasticway to work towards meeting your goal. and remember, in the ssdi program there aren'tany resource or income limits. another valuable
work incentive is continuation of medicarecoverage at the bottom of your screen. now back in december of 99 medicare coverage,coverage was expanded for individuals with disabilities who were working and it was expandedso much that medicare continued for at least 93 months after a trial work period. now thinkabout that, 93 months of the nine month trial period is 102 months and when you divide thatout that is at least 8-1/2 years of medicare coverage while you're working, very valuable.and that's free medicare part a coverage. it's such a powerful work incentive. it'sso value because we all know that without health insurance an illness or an injury canbe catastrophic financially. another important work incentive shown on your screen is section1619b. and that is if your earnings are so
high that you receive an ssi benefit and it'sreduced to zero and there's no cash payable there's a special provision that social securityhas where you may be able to qualify for continued medicaid coverage. and the last work incentivewe'll talk about as shown on your screen is expedited reinstatement. and with that sometimesyou'll hear that called easy back on. the expedited reinstatement is applied to folksreceiving an ssi benefit or an ssdi benefit and that actually work their way off benefits.it's a safety net and it allows for immediate reinstatement and up to six months of provisionalbenefits without a new application. to qualify for that you would have sixty months fromthe date you were terminated to request expedited reinstatement and you may qualify if you'restill disabled with the same or related impairment
and you're not working or you're working underthe substantial gainful activity level. and this year the substantial gainful activitylevel is $1,130 or $820 for an individual who is blind. now that's just a sampling ofsome of the work incentives out there for you to use. there's a lot more. you can findthem if you go to the social security website www.socialsecurity.gov/work. and now we'regoing to talk a little bit about the ticket to work program. and ben is there. he's scratchinghis head because he's starting out on his journey. and i think that is like many ofyou. he's thinking about returning to work and he's trying to decide is that the rightchoice for him? he's not really sure what path he should take, but he's done a lot ofresearch and he heard a lot and he's been
at the website and he knows that there arework incentives out there and programs out there which can help him. now he's still wonderingthough like why choose work? i think we have to go back to financial independence and togoals and what's important to us. and as elizabeth had said a little earlier that may be differentfor everyone. it is different for everyone. so for many of us work is an option that wecan count upon and we can look at when we want to reach our goals. now, by choosingwork it actually can allow us to earn more income to meet our goals whether the goalis something large like a new car or a new apartment or even a home or maybe we wantto pay for an education or start a business or maybe it's a smaller goal. maybe we wanta large screen tv or iphone or something along
those lines. but work too can actually helpus to gain more independence. maybe you want to move out of your parent's home or maybeyou want to get your own apartment instead of sharing an apartment or maybe you wantto relocate and not rely upon family or friends for some of the things you need. but by workingit can also help you to meet new people. i can tell you that some of my closest and someof my dearest friends are folks i met at work. they've widened my horizons. i learned fromthem and they learned from me and we have a lot of fun together. and i can tell youa personal story. i still keep in touch with the person who hired me over 35 years ago.a new paths fall. we've reconnected and i went away with her and several of my formergirlfriends. we all work together and it was
just an amazing time you know reminiscingback. but work can also help us to learn new skills whether they're skills in interpersonalrelationships or self-skills or computer skills or maybe trade skills. it can help us to geta new job, a better job. i can tell you a friend of mine left his job years ago andhe couldn't find work and that was probably back in the, oh my, i'm dating myself. itmight be the 80's or the 90's. but he took a job and it was barely above minimum wageand for him it was a huge pay cut but he wanted to work. and on the job he met someone andactually it was a customer. and this customer's father owned a business and that businesswas hiring and guess what? they hired my friend. they put him through school and he startedhis career there and he just recently retired.
so how's that for a happy ending. but we alsoknow that by learning new skills we may even get a better job or maybe even get promoted.now why choose work though? now a little earlier elizabeth was talking about achieving financialindependence and now things may be settling into place. you can work and file taxes andpossibly use an earned income tax credit, possibly for a down payment or to purchasesomething and you're budgeting and you're paying your expenses timely i might add, becausenow you have good credit. and now you can actually finance a bigger ticket item. you'reworking to where you want to be. and it sounds so easy but how do you get there? well, oneof the ways to get there and a great way to get there is the ticket to work program. butwhat is the program? well it's a free program
under social security and it's a voluntaryprogram. it's available to individuals receiving either ssdi benefits for ssi between the agesof 18 and 64 and it offers career development in a multitude of services from providersand you choose the provider. the providers are called employment networks or the officeof vocational rehabilitation. and they actually can help you to reach your goal. so what'syour next step? how do you take that next step? then it's asking if there's supportout there available to help him work? and one of the best ways i can think of to takethe next step is gathering information and resources and planning that journey. you haveto have a plan as elizabeth talked about, a plan towards employment and financial independence.going to work is a big decision and we all
know that and you want to make your journeyreally a smooth one and you don't want any surprises. and only you know what is bestfor you and only you know what it is that you need to do to achieve your goals. so,i am encouraging you to take that next step. and that next step is calling the ticket towork helpline. that number is 1-866-968-7842. the tty number is 1-866-833-2967. you canalso visit www.socialsecurity.gov/work. you can look over the information on that website.you can talk the folks on the ticket to work helpline and they'll actually reinforce someof the information that we're providing to you today. now if we had one more slide ofben following this one and i don't think we do, he actually would be smiling from earto ear. and he would be reaching or the stores
because ben is achieving his goals throughwork. he's using the work incentives. he assigned his ticket under the ticket to work programand i think now is the time that you think about it and reach for those stars too sothat you can meet your goals. and i think at this point i'm going to turn back overto elizabeth for a lot more valuable information and tips on ways you can save to meet thatgoal. >> thanks marlene. that's great information.thank you so much. so i want to come back to share with you some information about waysto save money to reach your goal. so you've had a chance to think through, okay i needto set a goal. i want to think about how i may do some cost savings. i want to considermoney that's due back to me like through the
earned income tax credit. i want to work foraccess to that money and access to increasing my income. and as marlene said, using someof the tools you have available to me like the ticket to work program and the socialsecurity incentives can all be very helpful. so let's, now that you have a little bit ofmoney let's talk about some ways to set that money aside. and one of the things i wantto make sure people know is thinking through their asset limits. we're going to talk aboutable accounts and ida programs which we refer to as protected savings opportunities andyou'll find out why in just a minute. so first make sure that you know your asset limit.some social security beneficiaries have an asset limit and some don't. so those of youwho are receiving ssdi your ssdi does not
have an asset limit. now you may be receivinganother public benefit that has an asset limit like you may through your state be receivingmedicaid and your medicaid might have an asset limit but your ssdi benefit does not. nowif you receive ssi supplemental security income you do have an asset limit and that assetlimit is $2000. and again, you may also be receiving other public benefits that havedifferent asset limits. but i want to make sure that you're remembering that it is yourresponsibility to know those asset limits. so even though we're encouraging you to savemoney and to set a goal to save money towards that goal we do recognize and understand thatyou have asset limits that you may feel bound to. but you know we know about these assetlimits but we don't always know about the
savings opportunities that we have even thoughwe have these asset limits. a good one is the one that i mentioned, the earned incometax credit. a lot of people over the years have not claimed their tax refund becausethey were afraid that it would negatively impact their ssi or their ssdi. they didn'tknow what would happen as a result of receiving that money and a lot is very clear now. themoney you receive does not count as income against any federally funded public benefitand you can hold that money in an account for 12 months before it counts as an asset.really great if you have that money direct deposited because then it's very clearly identifiedas a tax return. but there are some other new opportunities that we want to make sureyou're aware about and the newest is able
accounts. so able accounts it's a law thatwas passed last year. excuse me for a second folks, my screen went a little bit funny.okay able accounts were passed last year and they're a new opportunity for you to savemoney. so they're qualified savings accounts that receive preferred, sorry folks again,that receive preferred federal tax treatment, just like a 529 account. and for those ofyou who aren't familiar with that, 529 accounts are college savings accounts. but able accountsaren't just to save for college. so able accounts allow you to save up to $14,000 per year andthe contributions can go as high as the state limit for 529 savings accounts. so that variesby state and in a couple of the states that i've looked at, it's as high as $300,000.now the one caveat is if you're somebody who
receives ssi your asset limit under an ableaccount is $100,000. so just a moment ago we said your asset limit is $2000. but ifyou're saving money in an able account you can save up to $100,000 really incredible,right. able accounts are not going to be available to everyone. you have to have incurred yourdisability before age 26 so that means either you were born with a disability or you becamedisabled before the age of 26. and then you have to have a severity of disability whichmeans you either need to be receiving ssi or ssdi or your physician is going to haveto do a disability certification. able accounts are brand new and some of these rules arestill being worked out. the first able accounts are launching as we speak but there's stilla lot to be determined. so it's a great thing
for you to be thinking about and learningabout and we have a lot of resources for you to do that, which i'm going to talk aboutin a minute. so i just want to go over again that these able accounts are not going tocount against, as an asset against any federally funded public benefit. so again it won't countagainst your ssi, your ssdi, your food stamps, your tanf and employment insurance, worker'scompensation, anything that's paid even a little bit with federal money until you reachyour state's 529 asset limit or for ssi folks who reach $100,000 in your able accounts.and social security has determined that if you do reach $100,000 in your able accountand you receive ssi, then your benefits will be suspended until your account balance comesbelow the $100,000. so you're not going to
be terminated from the rules. you're justsuspended until your account, until your assets are again below the $100,000. you do wantto be thoughtful. you know if you're saving money and in multiple accounts, it's all ofthose, you know then you want to be thoughtful. if i have money and a regular bank accountthat's not an able account i don't get to save over the $2000 asset limit. you haveto use a protected savings opportunity like the able account. so i don't want you to thinkit's just you can just go and open an account at the bank and say hey, this is an able account.it doesn't work that way. these are specially set up accounts and to learn more we're goingto encourage you to connect with us here at national disability institute through ourable national resource center. on this website
you're going to get a lot of information aboutwhat you can use the funds for, which is really anything to improve your quality of life.you're going to get more information about which states have set up able accounts, howyou can participate and you can learn all of this at www.ablenrc.org. we also have somegreat videos from our executive director, michael morris who walks through a lot ofthis information and can help you just kind of wrap your head around how this all works,how you're all of a sudden have this huge opportunity to do savings that you never hadbefore. so if you incurred your disability before age 26 and you have a goal i reallyencourage you to look at this and think through whether or not an able account is the rightthing for you. another opportunity is individual
development accounts. so an individual developmentaccount is a matched savings account that will match every dollar you save towards aspecific goal. these are set up in local communities through partnerships that include a localcommunity based organization and the max amounts are varied based on the community. so thematching amount start at one dollar and can be up to as many dollars as that local communitydecided. there's a couple of ways that they receive the money for the programs. so thatcan determine what you're allowed to save for. so, federally funded idas those are idaprograms that are funded through tanf block grants or assets for independence dollars.those programs are really wonderful for folks who receive ssi and ssdi and other publicbenefits because the money saved in those
ida accounts along with the match that youreceive and any interest do not account as an asset against you and they don't countas income. and then ssi has set up special rules for how the money you put into youraccount is counted. so idas can be really great if you're receiving ssi or ssdi butyou do want to watch for those federally funded ida programs. federally funded ida programslet you save for home ownership, post-secondary education and training and starting your ownbusiness and business capital. ida programs that are not funded with federal funds canlet you save for lots of other things, but again you need to be careful because they'renot set up as protected savings opportunities. so you do want to be thoughtful about yourasset limit and work with that program to
see what they've done to make it a safe savingsopportunity for you. you can learn more about idas and also check to see if an ida is availablein your state by going to idaresources.org/afigrantees. that's a-f-i grantees. you can also learnabout other not federally funded programs by going to cfed.org. that's c-f-e-d.org/programs/idas.and as you recall i mentioned that ssi has some special rules about the money that yousave into an ida account and so you can learn about those at www.socialsecurity.gov/ssi/spotlights/spot-individual-development.htm. idas can be a really incredible opportunity if you havea plan to save for homeownership, post-secondary education and training or starting your ownbusiness. because not only do you, are you supported to save money, they provide youfinancial education. they support you in building
your credit. they link you to other availableprograms to help meet your goal, but they provide you that match so you get free moneybecause you're meeting your savings goal and you're participating fully in the program.the other thing you should know about idas is you have to have earned income to participatein an ida program. so this is another opportunity that you can access when you're working oronce you start working. so i wonder if after all this you're asking the question financialindependence, is it possible for me? and i hope you learned today that yes, it is possiblewith some good information like we've provided today. for many of you it may take some hardwork. for all of us it takes planning, education, training and support from social securityand other resources. and if you bundle all
of that together or at least a few piecesof it, you're going to have a great opportunity to have a good job, a good career which isreally the goal of the ticket to work program and a better self-supporting future. you'regoing to have the chance to maybe come back from where you were financially before youincurred a disability or to move forward towards the financial goals that you have for yourself.all of us start in one place with our finances and have to do some planning, some work andsome really strong personal motivation to get to the financial place that we want tobe. and i hope that the information we provided to you today is going to help you to do that.are there risks? absolutely, which is why it's really important to be smart and to accessthe social security's ticket to work program
and to utilize the work incentives that youhave available to you. they're there to help you navigate to a good job, a good careerand that self-supporting future that i know each of you can have. i want to encourageyou to really think through as you're returning to work and you're utilizing ticket to workand work incentives both, the rules and how to report your earnings so that you don'tfall into the unfortunate position of having an overpayment. because that can feel likea financial setback even though it's really not. it's just some that you didn't receivethat you'll need to pay back. it's important to keep good records and we had a great questionin the chat about doing that and i provided each of you a link to a webinar that we didthrough national disability institute some
time ago. i think a year or two ago wherea financial coach gave really great information on record keeping for your finances, whichyou can use also to help keep records of your social security paperwork and all of the thingsthat you've reported to social security including your return to work and your request to usework incentives. if you need additional support with that, of course you have the ticket towork call center to help you and we're going to give you that number in just a few minutes.i just want to remember, remind you to take advantage of the resources we've talked abouttoday. they're all free. they're all available to you. we at national disability institutehave worked with everybody we mentioned to you today to make sure that their servicesare available to you that they're accessible,
that they're keeping in mind the multiplediverse needs of individuals with disabilities. and if you have any difficulty at all we atnational disability institute have a mission to build a better economic future for individualswith disabilities and you're welcome to reach out to us around these financial independenceneeds. but also i encourage you to use the call center. they're there to provide youwith support and to connect you with the resources that you need to gain that job, gain thatcareer and have that better self-supporting future. there's some other resources thatare available to you that i'm going to hand off to jayme pendergraft to share. >> thanks so much elizabeth and i want totake a moment to thank both you and marlene
so much for both of your presentations today.you gave us some wonderful information about financial independence and ticket to work,so thank you. and as soon as we get through this other resources section we will go aheadand ask people some questions. our first resource is the federal deposit insurance corporationor the fdic's money smart program. this is a financial education program that's designedto help low and moderate income individuals increase their financial skills and createpositive banking relationships. you can get more information on the money smart programby either googling for fdic money smart or going to the following link, http://www.fdic/gov/consumers/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/index.html.another resource we would like to share today is the consumer financial protection bureauwhich is also known as cfpb. the mission of
cfpb is to make markets for consumer financialproducts and services work for americans, to work for everyone in our audience todaywhether looking to apply for a mortgage, choose among credit cards or use any other numberof consumer financial products. and you can learn more about cfpb online at http://consumerfinance.gov.that's today's presentation. both of our presenters talked about the ticket to work helpline.i'd like to remind everyone we have a lot of questions to get through today and we willnot be able to get to all of them. so we encourage you to give the helpline a call. and theycan be reached at 1-866-968-7842 for voice or 1-866-833-2967 for tty. you can learn moreinformation about ticket to work and work incentives and a variety of other topics bygoing online and visiting www.socialsecurity.gov/work
and finally you can also connect with us onsocial media. if you'd like to find us on facebook that link is www.facebook.com/choosework.on twitter you can follow us at www.twitter.com/chooseworkssa. we also have a variety of ticket to work videoson youtube. these include some wonderful success stories so i encourage you to go check thoseout as well. and you can visit our youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/choosework.and then if you are on linkedin you can also find us o there. and that website is https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticket-to-work.and i know that there's a lot of information on this slide so i will come back to it ina minute and i'll leave it up during our question and answer session. once this webinar endsthere will be a survey that pops up on your screen and we would love to have you fillthat out for us. a link will pop up automatically
and for your reference the link is www.choosework.net/surveys/wise. as i mentioned i'm going to leave our for more information screen up onthe screen for you all while we go to the questions box and take some questions. andelizabeth i'm going to start with you and ask marlene to then piggyback on this firstquestion. we have someone [inaudible] who has never had a job. what are your tips forthem in starting this process towards financial independence? >> that's a great question. the first thingis to think through what are your monthly costs? and sometimes that means that you mightbe going into debt every month or you might be doing okay every month. really everybodyis different, but you want to be thoughtful
about what are your monthly costs? and ifyou do have like a slightly different lifestyle you want, like let's say you're living withfamily and you'd really like to live on your own, then you want to thin through what arethe costs for the life that i want? and i don't mean a huge jump but you know that incrementaljump that would help you meet that first goal. and so you want to think about what's theamount of money that i need to earn. that's the goal in thinking through that. what'sthe amount of money i need to earn? sometimes we're really quick to get a job which is great.but having that thought of what's the financial goal that i have? how much money do i needto earn can help us to think more about am i going to be able to secure a job that meetsthat financial need? do i need to get more
training? and then utilize the resources thatare available to you starting with ticket to work, who can help connect you with vocationalrehabilitation or an employment network in your local area who can help you meet thegoals that will help you get the job that will meet that financial need. >> thanks so much elizabeth. marlene do youhave anything to add? okay. it sounds like marlene might be on mute. so we'll circleback to her in a minute. elizabeth can you tell us a little bit again about the differencebetween a bank account and a credit union? >> sure. so a credit union is a communitybased, much more community based than a bank. banks are set up really to make profit andcredit unions are more non-profit. they're
owned by the shareholders of the bank. soif you're an individual who joins a credit union you immediately become a shareholder.their mission is people helping people. that's really kind of their motto. and so creditunions have a tendency to be much more community focused. they do have different things thatyou have to have in order to be a member. sometimes you have to work at a certain placeor live in a certain community. but oftentimes they say if you live, work or worship in thisarea you can join this credit union. you know if you're not sure about credit unions youcan just go and visit a credit union and let them know i heard about credit unions. i cameand i wanted to get more information and get a feel for who they are. but they tend tohave greater opportunity for people who haven't
had bank accounts in a long time and greatopportunities for people who need some programs to work on their credit. >> thanks elizabeth. that leads me into mynext question. how can i work to improve a bad credit score? >> yeah so you know it just takes a littletime. so if you're somebody who has debt there's lots of strategies for working through yourdebt. there's different approaches to that. one's called the snowball approach and ifyou explore our website realeconomicimpact.org maybe we could put that in the chat box forfolks, realeconomicimpact.org. that's ndi's website. we have a lot of webinars that we'vedone over time that walk people through the
opportunities you have. also if you use ourself-paced learning course zero balance budget that we talked about earlier, it gives youa couple of approaches to working on your credit so that you can start to think throughyour strategy. the number one thing to do when you're working on your credit is to makeon-time payments. so this is again where your bank or credit union can be very helpful toyou. because if you want a way, if you have a way you can make instant payments that youdon't have to think about, even if they're small or the minimum balance but you wantto make those on-time payments. that's going to help you a lot with your credit. the otherimportant thing to is as much as you can kind of put a halt on using your credit. if you'reusing more than 30% of the credit that's available
to you, that starts to have a negative impacton your credit rating. so if you a $1000 available on your credit card you want to stay you knowor don't use more than about $300 dollars. that can be hard when you have additionalfunds available to you through a credit card. so i would just give those two tips, pay ontime and as much as you can start putting away that credit card, especially if you owemore than 30% of the credit that you have. >> one more question on credit. how do mystudent loans affect my credit score? >> yeah so your student loans if you're notmaking on-time payments that's going to have a negative impact on your credit. so it'sreally important that you call your lender and talk to them. if you're having a financialbarrier to paying your student loans there
are different opportunities for them to workwith you. i'm not talking about forgiveness, but i'm talking about just what timeline doyou pay in and how much. you want to call your lender and talk to them if you're notable to make those payments. otherwise every late payment is going to be a hit on yourcredit. >> thanks elizabeth. we do have several questionsabout able. and the first one is do i have to wait for my state to establish a programbefore opening an able account? >> we're very fortunate because through somework by we here at national disability institute and several other national organizations itwas decided that you do not have to open an able account in the state that you live in.you can open an able account in any state
that is making able accounts available. soit's going to take a little bit of research on your part to decide who's the right statefor me to join with? or you might decide the first one open is the first one i'm goingto. so check out ablenrc.org. that's the able national resource center because states arealready opening up for business. >> thanks elizabeth. can i have more thanone able account? >> that's a great question and i have to tellyou that i am not sure. so rather than give any bad information, i'm going to say we'llhave to, just send us in your, well jayme how would you like to handle getting backto someone on a question like that? >> i would say just one second and i willhave to look up that answer online and hopefully
provide the information. >> okay. >> go ahead marlene. >> i just found it. the able acts limits theopportunity to one able account per eligible individual. >> thank you marlene and that's why we havea couple of great presenters on today to help share this information. we also have anotherquestion that we might have to get back to the person about. she's wondering if ableaccounts are disregarded for medicaid waiver purposes.
>> well medicaid waivers are federally fundedso they would fall under the same rules as any federally funded public benefits. andthe rule is that able accounts are disregarded as an asset up to the limits that we talkedabout for any federally funded public benefit. >> great thank you so much elizabeth. i'mgoing to switch gears a little bit and ask marlene some questions about ticket to workand work incentives. marlene, we had quite a few questions about tax plans which youdidn't talk about in your presentation. could give some information on what a pass is? >> okay, yes i think you can hear me now. >> we can.
>> great a pass is a plan for choosing self-reportand it's one of the work incentives. it's a great way to work towards financial independence.it's a way that you can save earnings or your income, unearned income or resources to pursuea feasible and a viable work goal that will either eliminate or reduce your reliance onbenefits. you would have to have that work goal and then you would need to have expensesassociated with achieving that goal and you would be working towards that goal. and thegoal could be for anything like education or training or maybe you want to start a business.or maybe you're a person or supporting a person with a developmental disability. and it couldbe something like working more hours with less support. social security actually doesn'tcount the income or the resources you set
aside under pass for those expenses when they'refiguring the ssi payment amount. to apply for a pass social security actually prefersthat you use their form. i believe it's an ssa-545 and you can find that online at socialsecurity.gov.you have to work goal again. it has to be an achievable work goal. there has to be aspecific timeframe involved. and you have to have income other than supplemental securityincome or resources that you'll set aside to reach that goal. and again social securitywill need to approve it. they'll work with you. they'll periodically do progress reviewsand they'll review it. you can also phone their 800 number for additional informationon the pass [inaudible] nearest you. their toll-free number for their call center is800-772-1213 or you can call the ticket to
work helpline that's shown on your screen,1-866-968-7842. and it's really really an underutilized work incentive and it's a greatwork incentive. it's not just for folks who receive supplemental security income. it alsocan be a work incentive or a tool for folks who are giving ssdi and can become eligiblefor supplement security income benefits. >> thank you so much for that informationmarlene. moving on we have a question about ticket to work. we have someone in the audiencewho actually has a job offer. so first we would like to say congratulations! we're veryhappy to hear that. but she wants to know how she can assign her ticket to work andwhy she should go ahead and do that? >> okay she can assign her ticket to workby the first step would be choosing an employment
network, finding an employment network orvocational rehabilitation. searching for one who can provide what other services you needto support you in working. you can visit www.choosework.net and there's a search tool that provides youwith all of the employment networks and the vocational rehabilitation agency which canprovide services. so the first step is finding an employment network or vr who will workwith you. all of the employment networks do not provide the same services so you wouldneed to search for one who can provide you with what you need. and then once you do thatyou can assign your ticket to that employment network and from there on as long as you areprogressing, [inaudible] progressing toward achieving your goal you are not subject tothe regularly scheduled medical reviews.
>> thanks marlene. elizabeth there are morequestions about [inaudible]. can you tell us again [inaudible] to what able money canbe used to pay for? >> yeah, so i really encourage all of youto check out the able national resource center, ablenrc.org because we do try and go intothat on the website, but it's pretty broad. so your able account funds can be used foranything that makes your life, that improves your quality of life. so that may be thingsthat you need to go back to school, things that you need to go to work, things that youneed to participate in community life. it's really quite broad. so i don't want to putany limits on it. it doesn't have to be something related to your disability which is somethingthat happens sometimes. you're allowed to
spend funds on things only related to yourdisability. able account is not like that. this is very broad language. anything thatimproves your quality of life and again check out ablenrc.org to learn more. >> great. thank you so much elizabeth. let'ssee marlene can people use the ticket to work to work from home or become self-employed? >> yes they can. you can use the ticket towork and work as an employee. if you found a job and there's an employer who is hiringyou that's fine. but yes you can work at home and or become self-employed under the ticketto work program. the ticket to work program is very broad and it doesn't restrict youfrom just working outside of your home for
an employer. >> thank you marlene. and elizabeth we'vegot about one minute left. could you give our audience some advice on how to start thisjourney to financial independence? >> i'd be happy to. i think it really startswith you. what is it that you want for yourself? what are some things that would make yourlife, improve your quality of life and it's going to be very broad. we've talked withfolks before who their financial goal is really around getting more food into the house andonto the table, [inaudible] about where they live or having the resources to get to work,being able to avoid a financial crisis. so having some money and some savings in an accountso that when a financial crisis hits they
are able to take care of themselves. others,it's debt, they want to pay down debt. others have really moved pretty far forward in theirfinancial life and they're saving for things that are more fun like vacations and i hopewe're all doing what we can to save for retirement and there's some growing opportunities todo that. it really starts with you so whatever you want to save for and then recruit yourfamily, your friends, all of them to help you in this fight. and then do use the ticketto work call center and connect the ticket to work and use your work incentives so thatyou can have access to every resource possible to make this goal a reality. >> thank you much elizabeth. that's a fantasticway to end today's webinar. i would like to
thank marlene and elizabeth and also nakiaand peggy and nancy in the background. i know that we didn't get to everyone's questionstoday so i do encourage you to call that ticket to work helpline. they are available to giveyou the information you need and to answer the questions that we weren't able to getto today. please stay tuned for our next webinar which will be listed on choosework.net shortly.and i want to thank all of you for coming today. we know that attending a seminar isa wonderful first step to getting additional information. so we appreciate that you joinedus this afternoon and hope you all have a fantastic day. thank you very much.
