Webinar

WIP CEU Webinar Series: Income Averaging: When Average Is Better than Above Average

$20

June 17 2025 1-3 pm ET

When it comes to determining whether a person’s wages are SGA, Social Security has its own law of averages.  If an individual’s countable income fluctuates above and below the SGA dollar amount from month to month, SSA will generally average the earnings, rather than consider the precise amount each month.  Income averaging can be helpful to many beneficiaries; if their countable earnings exceed SGA several months a year, but their average annual earnings are below SGA, they will not be counted as performing SGA in any month of the year.  But if their countable earnings exceed SGA in most but not all months, income averaging can actually hurt them; it may be used to determine that their earnings were over SGA in every month of the year.

Averaging isn’t always used, even when countable earnings fluctuate above and below the SGA amount.  And sometimes earnings may be averaged multiple different times during a calendar year, instead of using an annual average.  Work Incentive Practitioners need to know the rules for averaging to help Title II beneficiaries estimate whether their cash benefits will continue based on their earnings.

This webinar addresses the details, including:

When averaging is and is not used  Rules for determining the periods during which earnings are averaged  Estimating when averaging will help an individual  Strategies to help avoid having averaging hurt a person  Differences in averaging for self-employment