Assistance program
Social Security - Work Incentives Planning and Assistance Program
$134.8 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Social Security Administration, Social Security Administration
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 96.008
- What it does
- To comply with the Ticket-to-Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (TWWIIA) which was passed in December 1999, and reauthorized by the Social Security Protection Act of 2004, which requires the SSA to establish a community-based work incentives planning and assistance program. The purpose of the program is to support beneficiaries who want to return to work to make a successful and profitable transition to the workforce. Beneficiaries that continue to work improve their economic independence and financial security. WIPA projects help beneficiaries take advantage of our work incentives programs, which may delay or reduce the effect of work on monetary benefits and health insurance. Additionally, WIPA projects act as repositories for information about other work incentives, benefits counseling services, and other resources that may help beneficiaries succeed in their work attempts, or may assist beneficiaries to improve financial stability as they return to work.
- Who benefits
- WIPA projects serve beneficiaries who are age 14 and older, and receive any of the following benefits based on their own disabilities: • Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits; • Childhood Disability Benefits; • Disabled Widow(er)s Benefits; • SSI based on blindness or disability; • Medicare under the Extended Period of Medicare Coverage (for former disability beneficiaries performing substantial work); • Medicaid under Section 1619(b) of the Social Security Act (for SSI beneficiaries ineligible for payment due to work income); • A State supplementary SSI payment (even if the beneficiary is not due a Federal SSI payment); or • Medicare coverage based on disability and Medicare qualified government employment.
- Who applies
- Applicants applying for cooperative agreement funds may include State or local governments (excluding any State administering the State Medicaid program), public or private organizations, or nonprofit or for-profit organizations (for-profit organizations may apply with the understanding that no cooperative agreement funds may be paid as profit to any awardee), as well as Native American tribal organizations that the Commissioner determines is qualified to provide work incentives planning and assistance to all SSDI and SSI beneficiaries with disabilities, within the targeted geographic area. These may include Centers for Independent Living established under Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, protection and advocacy organizations, Native American tribal entities, client assistance programs established in accordance with Section 112 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, State Developmental Disabilities Councils established in accordance with Section 124 of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, and State agencies administering the State program funded under Part A of Title IV of the Act. The Commissioner may also award a cooperative agreement to a State or local Workforce Investment Board, a Department of Labor (DOL) One-Stop Career Center System established under the Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, or a State Vocational Rehabilitation agency. Cooperative agreements may not be awarded to any individual, the Social Security Administration Field Offices, any State agency administrating the State Medicaid program under Title XIX of the Act, any entity that the Commissioner determines would have a conflict of interest if the entity were to receive a cooperative agreement under the Work Incentives Planning and Assistance (WIPA) Program or any organization described in Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1968 that engages in lobbying (in accordance with Section 18 of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, 2 U.S.C. 1611).
- Authorized by
- Social Security Act
- Program site
- http://www.ssa.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments