The Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Advisory Panel:
Get Involved

The Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Advisory Panel of the Social Security Administration (SSA) is holding a series of public meetings to obtain public input across the country. The purpose of these meetings and teleconferences is to collect ideas and reactions from all interested parties on the proposed regulations the Social Security Administration issued on December 28, 2000. These regulations spell out the program rules and the SSA implementation plans for the new Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Improvement Act programs.

The new "Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program'' is authorized by the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. The program will provide SSA disabled beneficiaries with more choice in employment services, vocational rehabilitation services, and other kinds of support services to help them return to work. The Ticket program will pay the new providers of those services after a SSA beneficiary achieves a certain level of work.

The Panel is preparing a Report of Advice to the Commissioner of Social Security Administration on the proposed regulations. Your reactions to the regulations that will affect the opportunities for Social Security beneficiaries to go to work will help us frame our advice. We want to hear from you in person, on the phone and by email. Even if we hear from you briefly, a written version of your ideas will help us even more. Please limit your oral comments to five minutes.

Please note that your comments to the Panel will NOT be considered as a response to the SSA on the proposed regulations. The Panel strongly encourages you to also make comments directly to the SSA in response to the Notice of Proposed Rule Making. To be sure that your comments are considered, SSA must receive them no later than February 26, 2001.

The Panel is interested in your response to a number of questions pertaining to the proposed rule. Please refer to the "Questions for the Public regarding the NPRM" at the bottom of this notice.

For electronic information on the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act see the www.ssa.gov/work web site and for a copy of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making, look under the topic SSA at www.access.gpo.goc/sudocs/fedreg/a001228c.html

It is the duty of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel (the Panel), also authorized by P.L. 106-170, to advise the President, the Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on issues related to work incentives programs, planning, and assistance for individuals with disabilities. The following questions to the public are posed by the Panel to elicit input on the proposed rule. The Panel will take the responses to these questions into consideration when it develops its advice report.

For more information on these events, please contact Conwal, our meeting coordinator at (703) 448 - 2300 ask for Robin at extension 338 robint@conwal.com or Rona at extension 326.