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Overview - Getting Started

Welcome to WorkWORLD for the Web, developed by the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS). If you have a disability, WorkWORLD is designed to help you make informed decisions about going to work, returning to work, or increasing your earnings.

NOTE: Calculations and recommendations generated by WorkWORLD are based solely on your inputs. Neither ESI nor SSA can be held responsible for data entry errors, omissions, faulty or inaccurate information, or for failure to follow instructions.

IMPORTANT: Laws, regulations, and policies governing the benefit and work incentive programs covered by WorkWORLD change frequently to reflect legislative, judicial, and regulatory actions at the Federal, State, and Local levels. Certain newer changes may not be incorporated into the version of WorkWORLD you are using. Authorized representatives of the various programs can provide authoritative information concerning your specific situation.

VERY IMPORTANT: Even if you are sure there are no input errors, you should always check with your SSA Claims Representative and representatives of any other applicable benefit programs before acting upon WorkWORLD results. Actual results may vary from WorkWORLD's results in some cases because WorkWORLD does not cover some exceptions to the general rules that apply only in rare situations.

General Instructions:

Start by telling WorkWORLD about your current situation. WorkWORLD asks you one question at a time about, for example, where you live, what benefits you have, and whether or not you are currently working and earning money.

NOTE: SSA now offers a free Benefits Planning Query (BPQY) report that contains much of the detailed information needed to accurately answer the Current Situation questions.

After you have answered all of the questions about your current situation, you can then use WorkWORLD to ask "What If…?" questions. "What if I went to work part time and earned $350 per month?" "What if I earned $850 per month?" "What if I used the PASS work incentive and put aside money to buy an automobile?"

You can ask "What If…?" questions by having WorkWORLD create a new column of answers to the right of the answers for your current situation. We call this "creating a new situation."

In the new column, answer the same questions, or new questions, as if the situation you want to test were true. For example, you may not be employed, and so you answered "NO" to the question, "Earnings: Do you have any income from wages, salary, or self-employment?" You want to know, however, what will happen to your benefits and net income if you got a job. In the new column, you would therefore answer "YES" to that same question. A new question will then appear, asking you how much you are earning. You would then enter an amount to see what would be the effect of earning that amount.

Questions appear one at a time. Because some questions are only necessary if you answered a previous question in a certain way, only the questions relevant to your situation will appear. For example, if you respond "NO" when asked if you are married, then no other questions related to your spouse will be asked for that situation.

As you move from one situation to the next (from one column to the next), questions that were necessary in a previous situation may not be required for outcomes in another. For example, if you were to answer "YES" to being married in the first situation, WorkWORLD will ask spouse-related questions. If in the second situation you changed your answer about being married to "NO", the spouse questions you answered in the previous situation would be visible, but the answer boxes for those questions in the new situation will be gray and your cursor will skip over those questions.

NOTE: SSA now offers a free Benefits Planning Query (BPQY) report that contains much of the detailed information needed to accurately answer the Current Situation questions.

Also see:

Integrated, synchronized, closed-captioned multi-media demonstrations of WorkWORLD are now available on the WorkWORLD website. Tutorial modules explain WorkWORLD's features and show many aspects of its operation, while presentation modules discuss the software's use in the broader context of benefits planning and service delivery for individuals. See and hear all the modules on the Tutorials and Presentations page at:
http://www.workworld.org/media/menu.htm

WorkWORLD™ Help/Information System

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Complete information about the software is available at: http://www.WorkWORLD.org