The paperwork behind Ticket to Work, the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) return-to-work program for people on disability benefits, is up for a proposed revision. SSA’s estimate is that 65,095 respondents a year deal with it: ticketholders who are working or trying to, the employment networks that serve them, and the state vocational rehabilitation agencies. The change is a proposal out for public comment until November 23, 2026, and the forms in use today stay in force while it is reviewed.
SSA labels the entry a revision of an existing approved collection, OMB number 0960-0644. The notice appeared on September 24, 2026, in the same Federal Register issue as ten other SSA collections.
Ticket to Work: a voluntary program with three kinds of filer
According to SSA’s work page, Ticket to Work serves people ages 18 through 64 who receive Social Security disability benefits and want to work, and is “free and voluntary.” The program’s own choosework.ssa.gov site says participants can keep their benefits while exploring employment and return to benefits if they cannot continue working because of their disability.
Under the program’s regulations in 20 CFR Part 411, a beneficiary receives a ticket and may assign it to an employment network, a private or public organization that provides job services, or to a state vocational rehabilitation agency. Assignment requires a signed individual work plan or individualized plan for employment. Employment networks are paid either by milestone or by outcome, while a state agency can choose to be reimbursed for its costs instead.
What the 65,095 figure adds up to
The 65,095 is a total across all three groups, not the count for any one of them. The notice lists it as the grand total for the collection, along with 302,745 annual responses and 78,309 burden hours. The notice presents the respondents line by line, and adding those lines by group shows how lopsided the total is. Financial Wire’s tally of the notice’s table gives 51,001 ticketholder entries, 10,644 entries naming only employment networks, 450 naming only state agencies and 3,000 naming employment network and state agency staff together.
Two features of the count matter. First, it covers more than paper forms: portal functions, a web registration page and site visit questionnaires sit in the same table, so “forms” is shorthand for the whole collection. Second, the same organization can appear on several lines, so the total is a burden estimate, not a headcount of distinct people.
How each party uses the paperwork
Ticketholders, whom the title calls workers, account for most of the volume. The largest single line is Form SSA-1370, with 40,000 ticketholder respondents at 60 minutes each, which is 40,000 of the collection’s 78,309 hours. Form SSA-1385 adds 1,000 ticketholder respondents at 10 minutes, and 10,000 more register on the WISE web page at three minutes each. Form SSA-1375 appears for ticketholders with a single respondent as a placeholder, because, as the table notes, SSA is not currently conducting timely progress reviews.
Employment networks carry the broadest list. Staff forms SSA-1373, SSA-1389 and SSA-1391 each count 1,704 respondents at 40 minutes, Form SSA-1401 counts five, and management files Form SSA-1374 six times a year with 345 respondents. Networks also file contract changes, proofs of relationship, an annual performance outcome report and administrative or traditional site visit questionnaires.
State vocational rehabilitation agencies have the heaviest per-respondent load. Their staff, 150 respondents, send case closure notifications 910 times each at 11 minutes, which is 25,025 hours, a third of the collection’s hours from one small group. They also submit electronic files and track progress. Agency and network staff share portal tasks such as ticket assignment, unassignment and payment requests.
A revision the notice does not itemize
The notice does not say which forms change or how. Its Ticket to Work entry describes the collection and its burden and calls it a revision, without a narrative of added, removed or reworded fields. That contrasts with another entry in the same notice, which spells out that Form HA-4631 would absorb Form HA-4632. For Ticket to Work, the comment period is therefore the stage at which the public can ask SSA what is changing.
The stakes for beneficiaries are practical. The program’s pitch is that beneficiaries can try work without losing benefits, and several of these forms are how that arrangement is recorded between a ticketholder, a provider and SSA.
Where comments on docket SSA-2026-1090 go
Anyone can comment at no cost through the regulations.gov page for docket SSA-2026-1090, which the Federal Register notice names as the online route. The notice also accepts mail to the Reports Clearance Director at SSA’s Baltimore headquarters, email to OR.Reports.Clearance@ssa.gov and fax to 833-410-1631. SSA’s Ticket to Work Help Line, 1-866-968-7842 (TTY 1-866-833-2967), answers program questions on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time.
The deadline in the notice is November 23, 2026, and the total SSA wants tested is its own: 65,095 respondents, 302,745 responses and 78,309 hours a year.
Working on disability benefits beyond the Ticket forms
The proposed revision covers the paperwork passed between ticketholders, employment networks and state agencies, but the notice says nothing about how earnings from a job sit against a monthly Social Security disability or SSI payment. That gap is where a working beneficiary can be left unsure what must be reported, and when.
The SSI & Disability Action Kit is a 10-page kit covering the rules for working without losing benefits, the 2026 SSI income and resource limits and review and reporting steps.
Start with the rules for working without losing benefits →
Drafted with AI assistance; every figure was matched to the Federal Register notice and the Social Security Administration pages linked in the text.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
