What Does The Va Considered Substantial Gainful Employment

Substantially gainful employment is defined as employment at which non-disabled individuals earn their livelihood with earnings comparable to the particular occupation in the community where the veteran resides.

What does the va considered substantial gainful employment. Substantially gainful employment is any competitive employment that provides you with earnings that push you over the poverty threshold. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census as the poverty threshold. Work activity is gainful if. This post is about proving you cant get or keep a substantially gainful occupation due to your service connected disabilities or in other words proving an element of a VA TDIU claim.

This amount changes each year but was 12760 in 2020. If it is substantial the SSA may well find that you are able to work and thus not eligible for Social Security Disability benefits. In its decision the Court outlined certain standards for VA to uphold when adjudicating the issue of TDIU. There seems to be a fair amount of literary deviation between the two.

One way to evaluate employment is to look at annual income for several years. Work that is not paid is not considered gainful employment. The first criteria the VA looks at when evaluating eligibility for TDIU is a Veterans wages. Two or more service-connected disabilities at least one disability ratable at 40 or more with a combined rating of 70 or more.

Both of these must be true. Though we are not yet prepared to impose a Court created rule upon the BVA we would suggest to the Secretary that there is much that could be borrowed from the decisions of the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals which have considered the question of whether a social security disability claimant is able to engage in substantial gainful activity. Social Security uses the term substantial gainful activity to describe certain levels of work activity volunteering and earnings. Before we get to that though VA TDIU claims aka claims by a veteran for individual unemployability are going to be a big topic for the next few weeks on the Veterans Law Blog for two reasons.

You cant hold down a steady job that supports you financially known as substantially gainful employment because of your service-connected disability. Even if you meet this first standard you also have to prove that you are unable to perform other occupations as they normally would be performed in the national economy. Substantially Gainful Employment Substantially gainful employment is employment that is ordinarily followed by the nondisabled to earn their livelihood with earnings common to the particular occupation in the community where the veteran resides. One that provides annual income that exceeds the poverty threshold for one person irrespective of the number of hours or days that the veteran actually works and without regard to the veterans earned annual income prior to his having been awarded a 100 rating based on individual unemployability such employment constitutes as a matter of law a substantially gainful occupation and thus actual employability for the purposes of 38 CFR 3343c1.

Substantially gainful employment is a term that comes into play when addressing the issue of total disability based on individual unemployability TDIU. Substantially gainful employment is most often defined as earnings that are above the federal poverty level for a single person. Full-time and part-time work may be considered substantial activity. The VA has defined substantial gainful occupation in its Adjudication and Procedural Manual as that which is ordinarily followed by the nondisabled to earn their livelihood with earnings common to the particular occupation in the community where the veteran resides10Marginal employment is not considered substantial gainful employment.

You must be unable to maintain substantially gainful employment as a result of service-connected disabilities marginal employment such as odd jobs is not considered substantial gainful employment for VA purposes. The VA defines substantially gainful employment as employment at which non-disabled individuals earn their livelihood with earnings comparable to the particular occupation in the community where the veteran resides. You have at least 1 service-connected disability rated at 60 or more disabling or 2 or more service-connected disabilitieswith at least 1 rated at 40 or more disabling and a combined rating of 70 or more and. Namely TDIU is awarded in cases where the veteran is unable to obtain and maintain substantially gainful employment as a result of their service-connected conditions.

Work is substantial if you have to do significant physical or mental activities to carry out your tasks. Specifically it clarified the meaning of the phrase unable to secure and follow substantially gainful employment which is a determining factor in deciding whether a veteran is entitled to TDIU. For 2019 the poverty threshold is 12490 in gross earnings for the whole year. Marginal employment is deemed to exist when a veterans earned annual income is below the amount established by the US.

Substantial gainful activity includes part-time work and work that pays less than your regular employment or which has less responsibility. Legally the concept of substantial gainful employment breaks down into two parts. There are two ways to determine whether a veterans employment is considered marginal and not substantially gainful.