20 C.F.R. § 404.1574 : Employees' Benefits — SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION — FEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950- ) — DETERMINING DISABILITY AND BLINDNESS —SUBSTANTIAL GAINFUL ACTIVITY — Evaluation guides if you are an employee

(a) We use several guides to decide whether the work you have done shows that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. If you are working or have worked as an employee, we will use the provisions in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section that are relevant to your work activity. We will use these provisions whenever they are appropriate, whether in connection with your application for disability benefits (when we make an initial determination on your application and throughout any appeals you may request), after you have become entitled to a period of disability or to disability benefits, or both.
(1) Your earnings may show you have done substantial gainful activity. Generally, in evaluating your work activity for substantial gainful activity purposes, our primary consideration will be the earnings you derive from the work activity. We will use your earnings to determine whether you have done substantial gainful activity unless we have information from you, your employer, or others that shows that we should not count all of your earnings. The amount of your earnings from work you have done (regardless of whether it is unsheltered or sheltered work) may show that you have engaged in substantial gainful activity. Generally, if you worked for substantial earnings, we will find that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. However, the fact that your earnings were not substantial will not necessarily show that you are not able to do substantial gainful activity. We generally consider work that you are forced to stop or to reduce below the substantial gainful activity level after a short time because of your impairment to be an unsuccessful work attempt. Your earnings from an unsuccessful work attempt will not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. We will use the criteria in paragraph (c) of this section to determine if the work you did was an unsuccessful work attempt.
(2) We consider only the amounts you earn. When we decide whether your earnings show that you have done substantial gainful activity, we do not consider any income that is not directly related to your productivity. When your earnings exceed the reasonable value of the work you perform, we consider only that part of your pay which you actually earn. If your earnings are being subsidized, we do not consider the amount of the subsidy when we determine if your earnings show that you have done substantial gainful activity. We consider your work to be subsidized if the true value of your work, when compared with the same or similar work done by unimpaired persons, is less than the actual amount of earnings paid to you for your work. For example, when a person with a serious impairment does simple tasks under close and continuous supervision, our determination of whether that person has done substantial gainful activity will not be based only on the amount of the wages paid. We will first determine whether the person received a subsidy; that is, we will determine whether the person was being paid more than the reasonable value of the actual services performed. We will then subtract the value of the subsidy from the person's gross earnings to determine the earnings we will use to determine if he or she has done substantial gainful activity.
(3) If you are working in a sheltered or special environment. If you are working in a sheltered workshop, you may or may not be earning the amounts you are being paid. The fact that the sheltered workshop or similar facility is operating at a loss or is receiving some charitable contributions or governmental aid does not establish that you are not earning all you are being paid. Since persons in military service being treated for severe impairments usually continue to receive full pay, we evaluate work activity in a therapy program or while on limited duty by comparing it with similar work in the civilian work force or on the basis of reasonable worth of the work, rather than on the actual amount of the earnings.
(b) Earnings guidelines -
(1) General. If you are an employee, we first consider the criteria in paragraph (a) of this section and §404.1576, and then the guides in paragraphs (b)(2) and (3) of this section. When we review your earnings to determine if you have been performing substantial gainful activity, we will subtract the value of any subsidized earnings (see paragraph (a)(2) of this section) and the reasonable cost of any impairment-related work expenses from your gross earnings (see §404.1576 ). The resulting amount is the amount we use to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. We will generally average your earnings for comparison with the earnings guidelines in paragraphs (b)(2) and (3) of this section. See §404.1574a for our rules on averaging earnings.
(2) Earnings that will ordinarily show that you have engaged in substantial gainful activity. We will consider that your earnings from your work activity as an employee (including earnings from work in a sheltered workshop or a comparable facility especially set up for severely impaired persons) show that you engaged in substantial gainful activity if:
(i) Before January 1, 2001, they averaged more than the amount(s) in Table 1 of this section for the time(s) in which you worked.
(ii) Beginning January 1, 2001, and each year thereafter, they average more than the larger of:
(A) The amount for the previous year, or
(B) An amount adjusted for national wage growth, calculated by multiplying $700 by the ratio of the national average wage index for the year 2 calendar years before the year for which the amount is being calculated to the national average wage index for the year 1998. We will then round the resulting amount to the next higher multiple of $10 where such amount is a multiple of $5 but not of $10 and to the nearest multiple of $10 in any other case.

Table 1

For months: Your monthly earnings averaged more than:
In calendar years before 1976 $200
In calendar year 1976 230
In calendar year 1977 240
In calendar year 1978 260
In calendar year 1979 280
In calendar years 1980-1989 300
January 1990-June 1999 500
July 1999-December 2000 700

(3) Earnings that will ordinarily show that you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity.
(i) General. If your average monthly earnings are equal to or less than the amount(s) determined under paragraph (b)(2) of this section for the year(s) in which you work, we will generally consider that the earnings from your work as an employee (including earnings from work in a sheltered workshop or comparable facility) will show that you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity. We will generally not consider other information in addition to your earnings except in the circumstances described in paragraph (b)(3)(ii) of this section.
(ii) When we will consider other information in addition to your earnings. We will generally consider other information in addition to your earnings if there is evidence indicating that you may be engaging in substantial gainful activity or that you are in a position to control when earnings are paid to you or the amount of wages paid to you (for example, if you are working for a small corporation owned by a relative). (See paragraph (b)(3)(iii) of this section for when we do not apply this rule.) Examples of other information we may consider include, whether-
(A) Your work is comparable to that of unimpaired people in your community who are doing the same or similar occupations as their means of livelihood, taking into account the time, energy, skill, and responsibility involved in the work; and
(B) Your work, although significantly less than that done by unimpaired people, is clearly worth the amounts shown in paragraph (b)(2) of this section, according to pay scales in your community.
(iii) Special rule for considering earnings alone when evaluating the work you do after you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months. Notwithstanding paragraph (b)(3)(ii) of this section, we will not consider other information in addition to your earnings to evaluate the work you are doing or have done if-
(A) At the time you do the work, you are entitled to social security disability benefits and you have received such benefits for at least 24 months (see paragraph (b)(3)(iv) of this section); and
(B) We are evaluating that work to consider whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity or demonstrated the ability to engage in substantial gainful activity for the purpose of determining whether your disability has ceased because of your work activity (see §§404.1592a(a)(1) and (3)(ii) and 404.1594 ).
(iv) When we consider you to have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months. For purposes of paragraph (b)(3)(iii) of this section, social security disability benefits means disability insurance benefits for a disabled worker, child's insurance benefits based on disability, or widow's or widower's insurance benefits based on disability. We consider you to have received such benefits for at least 24 months beginning with the first day of the first month following the 24th month for which you actually received social security disability benefits that you were due or constructively received such benefits. The 24 months do not have to be consecutive. We will consider you to have constructively received a benefit for a month for purposes of the 24-month requirement if you were otherwise due a social security disability benefit for that month and your monthly benefit was withheld to recover an overpayment. Any months for which you were entitled to benefits but for which you did not actually or constructively receive a benefit payment will not be counted for the 24-month requirement. If you also receive supplemental security income payments based on disability or blindness under title XVI of the Social Security Act, months for which you received only supplemental security income payments will not be counted for the 24-month requirement.
(c) The unsuccessful work attempt -
(1) General. Ordinarily, work you have done will not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity if, after working for a period of 6 months or less, your impairment forced you to stop working or to reduce the amount of work you do so that your earnings from such work fall below the substantial gainful activity earnings level in paragraph (b)(2) of this section, and you meet the conditions described in paragraphs (c)(2), (3), (4), and (5), of this section. We will use the provisions of this paragraph when we make an initial determination on your application for disability benefits and throughout any appeal you may request. Except as set forth in §404.1592a(a), we will also apply the provisions of this paragraph if you are already entitled to disability benefits, when you work and we consider whether the work you are doing is substantial gainful activity or demonstrates the ability to do substantial gainful activity.
(2) Event that must precede an unsuccessful work attempt. There must be a significant break in the continuity of your work before we will consider that you began a work attempt that later proved unsuccessful. You must have stopped working or reduced your work and earnings below the substantial gainful activity earnings level because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions that were essential to the further performance of your work. We explain what we mean by special conditions in §404.1573(c). We will consider your prior work to be "discontinued" for a significant period if you were out of work at least 30 consecutive days. We will also consider your prior work to be "discontinued" if, because of your impairment, you were forced to change to another type of work or another employer.
(3) If you worked 3 months or less. We will consider work of 3 months or less to be an unsuccessful work attempt if you stopped working, or you reduced your work and earnings below the substantial gainful activity earnings level, because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions which took into account your impairment and permitted you to work.
(4) If you worked between 3 and 6 months. We will consider work that lasted longer than 3 months to be an unsuccessful work attempt if it ended, or was reduced below substantial gainful activity earnings level, within 6 months because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions which took into account your impairment and permitted you to work and-
(i) You were frequently absent from work because of your impairment;
(ii) Your work was unsatisfactory because of your impairment;
(iii) You worked during a period of temporary remission of your impairment; or
(iv) You worked under special conditions that were essential to your performance and these conditions were removed.
(5) If you worked more than 6 months. We will not consider work you performed at the substantial gainful activity earnings level for more than 6 months to be an unsuccessful work attempt regardless of why it ended or was reduced below the substantial gainful activity earnings level.
(d) Work activity in certain volunteer programs. If you work as a volunteer in certain programs administered by the Federal government under the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 or the Small Business Act, we will not count any payments you receive from these programs as earnings when we determine whether you are engaging in substantial gainful activity. These payments may include a minimal stipend, payments for supportive services such as housing, supplies and equipment, an expense allowance, or reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses. We will also disregard the services you perform as a volunteer in applying any of the substantial gainful activity tests discussed in paragraph (b)(6) of this section. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will apply only if you are a volunteer in a program explicitly mentioned in the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 or the Small Business Act. Programs explicitly mentioned in those Acts include Volunteers in Service to America, University Year for ACTION, Special Volunteer Programs, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparent Program, Service Corps of Retired Executives, and Active Corps of Executives. We will not exclude under this paragraph, volunteer work you perform in other programs or any nonvolunteer work you may perform, including nonvolunteer work under one of the specified programs. For civilians in certain government-sponsored job training and employment programs, we evaluate the work activity on a case-by-case basis under the substantial gainful activity earnings test. In programs such as these, subsidies often occur. We will subtract the value of any subsidy and use the remainder to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. See paragraphs (a)(2)-(3) of this section.
(e) Work activity as a member or consultant of an advisory committee established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 2. If you are serving as a member or consultant of an advisory committee, board, commission, council, or similar group established under FACA, we will not count any payments you receive from serving on such committees as earnings when we determine whether you are engaging in substantial gainful activity. These payments may include compensation, travel expenses, and special assistance. We also will exclude the services you perform as a member or consultant of an advisory committee established under FACA in applying any of the substantial gainful activity tests discussed in paragraph (b)(6) of this section. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will apply only if you are a member or consultant of an advisory committee specifically authorized by statute, or by the President, or determined as a matter of formal record by the head of a federal government agency. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will not apply if your service as a member or consultant of an advisory committee is part of your duties or is required as an employee of any governmental or non-governmental organization, agency, or business.

20 C.F.R. §404.1574

46 FR 4869, 1/19/1981, as amended at 48 FR 21936, 5/16/1983; 49 FR 22272, 5/29/1984; 54 FR 53605, 12/29/1989; 64 FR 18570, 4/15/1999; 64 FR 22903, 4/28/1999; 65 FR 42783, 7/11/2000; 65 FR 82910, 12/29/2000; 71 FR 3219, 1/20/2006; 71 FR 66853, 11/17/2006