SSDI and Work 2027: The $1,770 Earnings Limit, the Trial Work Period and the SSDI Cliff

You can work while you get SSDI: in your nine trial work months you keep your whole check whatever you earn, and after them, a month you earn more than $1,770 in 2027 can stop the whole check, while a month at or under that amount pays it in full. The calculator below shows what your pay does to SSI, SNAP and your other help, and warns you about this SSDI limit.

What is the SSDI earnings limit for 2027?

For 2027 it is $1,770 a month for most people and $2,950 if you are blind. For 2026 it is $1,690 and $2,830. SSA, the Social Security Administration, calls work above it substantial gainful activity, or SGA. The amounts come from its Federal Register notices for 2026 and 2027, and its manual lists them in POMS DI 10501.015.

SSDI is Social Security Disability Insurance: Social Security benefits paid because of a disability. The limit matters after your trial work period, which the next section explains.

The limit is for a month’s countable earnings. That is your pay before taxes, minus two things SSA takes off (20 CFR 404.1574):

• a subsidy: any part of your pay that is more than the real value of the work you do;
• impairment-related work expenses: what you pay for things you need in order to work because of your disability (20 CFR 404.1576).

SSA usually averages your earnings over a stretch of steady work (20 CFR 404.1574a). Work that you had to stop, or cut below the limit, after a short time because of your condition can count as an unsuccessful work attempt. After you have had benefits for 24 months, SSA judges SGA by your earnings alone.

The amount follows the national average wage and never goes down (20 CFR 404.1574(b)(2); for people who are blind, 20 CFR 404.1584). If you are self-employed, SSA uses other tests as well, which this page does not cover.

One limit you may hear about does not apply here: the retirement earnings test. It is for people who take retirement or survivors benefits before full retirement age, and SSDI does not use it.

What is the trial work period?

The trial work period is nine months in which you can earn any amount and still get your whole SSDI check (20 CFR 404.1592). The rule on payments, 20 CFR 404.401a, says earnings in a trial work period “will not stop your benefits”.

A month counts as one of the nine if you earn more than $1,270 in it in 2027, or more than $1,210 in 2026. If you are self-employed, a month also counts if you work more than 80 hours in your business. A month in which you earn less than that, and work no more than 80 hours in a business of your own, does not count, so it uses up none of your trial months (POMS DI 13010.060).

The nine months do not have to be in a row. The trial work period ends when you have had nine of them within any 60 months in a row. You get one trial work period in each period of entitlement to benefits. You may not get one at all if you worked at SGA level during the waiting period before your benefits began, or in the 12 months after your disability began, before SSA approved your claim.

The trial months protect your check, not the question of whether you still have a disability. SSA can look at the work you did in them when it later decides whether your disability has ended (20 CFR 404.1592).

What happens after the trial work period?

A 36-month period follows. In it, SSA pays your check for each month your countable earnings are at or under the SGA amount, and, after three grace months, pays nothing for the months they are over it (20 CFR 404.1592a). SSA’s manual calls this the extended period of eligibility; the regulation calls it the reentitlement period. It starts the month after your ninth trial month, whether you are working then or not (POMS DI 13010.210).

The grace months work like this. The first month after the trial work period in which you earn over the SGA amount is called the cessation month: the month SSA treats your disability as having ended because of your work. SSA pays your check for that month and the next two, whatever you earn (20 CFR 404.401a).

After the grace months:

• for any month your countable earnings are over the SGA amount, SSA pays no SSDI;
• for any month they are at or under it, SSA pays the full check again, with no new application, for as long as the 36 months last.

In these months, SSA looks at each month on its own. It no longer averages your earnings or treats the work as an unsuccessful work attempt (20 CFR 404.1592a(a)(2)).

What is the SSDI cliff?

The SSDI cliff is your whole check. After the trial work period and the grace months, a month with countable earnings one dollar over the SGA amount pays no SSDI at all, and a month at the amount pays the full check (20 CFR 404.1592a). In 2027, countable earnings of $1,770 in a month keep your check. A dollar more stops it for that month.

So the size of the cliff is your own monthly SSDI amount. If family members get benefits on your record, such as a spouse or children, their checks stop for those months too (20 CFR 404.401a).

That is why a month just over the amount can leave you with less money than a month just under it, whenever the extra pay is less than the check it stops. Whether more work leaves you ahead depends on how much more you would earn, compared with your check. SSI works differently: it shrinks by 50 cents for each extra dollar of pay, so it never drops all at once.

The 2027 amount is $1,770, up from $1,690 in 2026. The amount is set for each calendar year and does not go down, so pay that is over it one year can be under it the next.

What happens when the 36 months end?

It depends on what you earn then. If you earn over the SGA amount after the 36 months, your entitlement to SSDI ends in the first month you do. If you are under it when the 36 months end, your checks go on, and they end only in a later month when you earn over it, or if SSA finds your health has improved (20 CFR 404.1592a(a)(3); POMS DI 13010.210).

SSA’s manual gives an example. A person finishes the trial work period in December and goes on earning over the SGA amount. They are paid for January, February and March, the three grace months, and for no month after that while they keep earning over it. The 36 months end in December three years later, and their entitlement ends in the January after.

Once your entitlement has ended, you need a new application, or expedited reinstatement, to get SSDI again.

What if you have to stop working after SSDI ends?

You can ask SSA to restart your benefits without a new application. This is called expedited reinstatement (20 CFR 404.1592b to 404.1592f). It is for people whose SSDI ended because of work and who, within 60 months, stop working at SGA level because of the same condition or a related one.

While SSA decides, it can pay you up to six months of provisional benefits, with Medicare. For the first 24 months of payments after you are reinstated, there is no new trial work period: a month of work over the SGA amount means no check for that month.

Do you keep Medicare when the SSDI check stops?

Yes, for a long time. When SSDI ends because of work after the 36 months, Medicare Part A goes on (42 CFR 406.12). To work out how long, count the 36 months from the start and find the first month after the 15th in which you earned over the SGA amount. Medicare Part A lasts until the end of the 78th month after that one. If your SSDI ends later than that, it lasts until the end of the month after your SSDI ends.

It ends sooner if SSA tells you your disability has ended for another reason, such as an improvement in your health: then it stops at the end of the month after that notice.

How are SSI and SSDI different when you work?

SSI shrinks as you earn, and SSDI stops. SSI goes down by 50 cents for each dollar of pay over the first $85 a month, until it reaches zero (the guide to SSI explains it). SSDI pays the whole check in the trial work period, and after it, SSDI is all or nothing each month, depending on whether your countable earnings are over the SGA amount.

You can get both. SSDI counts as unearned income for SSI, so each dollar of SSDI over $20 a month lowers SSI by a dollar (20 CFR 416.1121). Pay then lowers SSI too, by half of each dollar over $65, because SSDI has already used up the $20.

Take a 50-year-old in Texas who gets $700 a month of SSDI, has no pay and lives alone, in 2027. With no pay, SSI adds $349 a month. If this person earns $600 a month, SSI falls to $81.50. The SSDI stays the same: that pay is under $1,270, so those months do not even count as trial work months.

The SGA amount matters for SSI mainly when SSA decides whether you have a disability. Once you are on SSI, pay over that amount does not stop SSI: SSA keeps working it out the usual way, under section 1619(a) of the Social Security Act (20 CFR 416.260). For SSI, people who are blind are not held to the SGA amount at all (POMS DI 10501.015).

What does the calculator show for SSDI?

A warning, not a cut. The calculator has one box for Social Security, so it cannot tell SSDI from other Social Security benefits. When someone under 67 has “Has a disability” ticked and an amount in that box, the answer adds a note headed “If this is SSDI”. It says that after the nine trial work months, earning over the SGA amount stops the whole check, with the year’s SGA and trial work amounts, and under “After the trial work months” it sets out the 36 months, what happens after them and expedited reinstatement, as this page does. When you try a raise that takes that person’s pay over the SGA amount, the “What if you earn more?” box says the same rule for that raise.

The calculator cannot know how many of your trial months you have used, whether you are in your grace months or your 36 months, or what SSA would take off your pay as a subsidy or work expenses. So it keeps the Social Security you typed in every figure, and it does not take SSDI away, even at pay over the SGA amount. When everyone it is warning about is blind, the note gives the higher amount for blind people.

Can you get an ABLE account if you are on SSDI?

Yes, if your disability began before the age the law sets, and it matters for the programs that look at your savings. An ABLE account is a savings account for a person whose blindness or disability began before age 46, from January 1, 2026; someone who gets SSDI based on a disability that began before that age can open one (26 U.S.C. 529A(e); POMS SI 01130.740). SSI does not count the first $100,000 in it, and other federal programs that look at income and savings, such as Medicaid and SNAP, leave it out (ABLE Act, section 103). So a person on SSDI and SSI together, or on SSDI and a Medicaid program with a savings test, can keep savings there. The SSI page sets out the rules.

The rest of the answer works out what your pay does to SSI, SNAP, health coverage and your other help, and your money at every level of pay. To see where your SSDI cliff is, compare your own countable earnings with the SGA amount on this page.

Where can you read SSA’s own rules?

SSA’s operating manual, called POMS, sets out the trial work period in DI 13010.060, the 36 months in DI 13010.210 and each year’s amounts in DI 10501.015. SSA’s guide to the work rules for people on disability benefits, the Red Book, starts at ssa.gov/redbook.

This site takes no applications and sends nothing to SSA. Only SSA can decide how your work affects your benefits.

Figures checked October 31, 2026.

Questions people ask

What is the SSDI earnings limit for 2027?

$1,770 a month in countable earnings for most people, and $2,950 for people who are blind. It decides whether you are paid once your trial work period is over.

How much can I earn during the trial work period?

Any amount. You keep your whole check in each of the nine trial months. In 2027, a month counts as a trial month if you earn more than $1,270.

Is the trial work amount the same as the earnings limit?

No. The trial work amount, $1,270 in 2027, only decides which months count as trial months. The SGA amount, $1,770, decides whether you are paid after the trial work period.

Do I lose all of my SSDI if I earn one dollar over the limit?

After the trial work period and the three grace months, yes, for that month. In the 36 months after the trial work period, the check comes back for any month you earn at or under the limit.

Will working end my Medicare?

Not right away. When SSDI ends because of work, Medicare Part A goes on for years, as 42 CFR 406.12 sets out, unless SSA finds your disability has ended for another reason.

Can I get SSDI back if I have to stop working?

Yes. In the 36 months, the check restarts for any month you earn at or under the limit. After SSDI has ended, you can ask for expedited reinstatement within 60 months, without a new application.

Does the calculator take my SSDI away if I earn over the limit?

No. It shows a warning instead, because it cannot know how many of your trial months you have used. Only SSA decides.

Updated November 1, 2026