If you suffer an injury at work, it could result in you having issues returning to work due to lasting effects from the injury. Because you very well could end up in a situation where your injury meets the Social Security Administration’s definition of a disability, you could qualify for Social Security Disability benefits.
This may lead you to wonder if you can collect Social Security and workers’ compensation at the same time. According to the Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation, the short answer is you can claim both types of benefits.
The law
There is a law that does specifically address situations where you receive two different types of disability benefits. It says that you cannot receive more than 80% of your average weekly wage in total.
The effects
What this means is that you will probably see a reduction in the amount of workers’ compensation benefits you receive to offset the number of benefits you get from Social Security. To see if it even makes sense to go through the process of trying to secure these benefits, you should first determine your average weekly wage and then determine what makes 80%. It may not be worth your time to even try to go through Social Security to get disability benefits.
Understand that the process to get disability benefits can be long and complicated, so if you will only be able to get a couple of hundred extra dollars per month once approved, it may not be worth it for you. However, if you need every bit of money you can get to make up for your loss of income, then it would be well worth going through with applying.