Fearful of losing benefits, millions of disabled and low-income Americans may be shying away from finding jobs or taking on more hours at work.

Some fears are justified.

In need-based programs, the amount of a person's income often determines the amount of benefits. Working too many hours or making too much money can put health insurance or other disability benefits at risk.

"One more dollar earned sometimes means a large drop in a person's net income or health-care coverage," said Mark Hill, director of the Employment Support Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Business.

"Not knowing what is safe, many people sometimes just give up trying."

So how much is too much? That's the hard part.

"Decision-support" software developed by the institute represents a new hope for giving accurate answers to questions that often seem to have no concrete answers.

"There are millions of people who could be making wages without risking loss of benefits," Hill said. "There's a huge disconnect between what the rules are and what people think. And then, how many people stay at poverty levels without income because of lack of knowledge about how the system works?"

An estimated 75 percent of people with disabilities are unemployed.

Hill and his colleagues have been working on the "WorkWORLD" software for about four years.

Much of the money supporting the project comes from the federal Social Security Administration, which contracted with the VCU institute to enhance, maintain and update the software. Hill said the annual project budget has been about $400,000 for each of the past three years.

Still, WorkWORLD is free for download at www.workworld.org.

The software works a little like Turbo Tax, the popular program that calculates how much a person owes or the amount of a tax refund.

It is designed to evaluate basic information about a person's situation, then develop spreadsheets that show how higher wages or other changes would affect benefits. Like Turbo Tax, WorkWORLD generates follow-up questions that build on prior responses. So the further into the program a person explores, the more individualized the results.

The software can be used by anyone with a personal computer.

But common users are benefits counselors and advocates for the disabled, who learn the program and use it the way a financial adviser uses specialized programs to advise investors.

Ed Turner, an advocate for the disabled who also works at VCU, said he has not yet experimented with WorkWORLD. But Turner, who has cerebral palsy, said any help making sense out of complicated benefits policies and work-incentive programs is welcomed by those with disabilities.

"It's a really big issue because people do not want to give up benefits," he said. "The more you understand the work incentives, it will alleviate the fear of losing benefits."

Several states, including Massachusetts, Iowa and Oklahoma, have tailored WorkWORLD so the software can predict how income changes may affect a person's benefits according to that state's policies.

Oklahoma's Department of Rehabilitation Services has used WorkWORLD for three years. Dan O'Brien, program manager for community rehabilitation services, said the software is doing exactly what it is designed to do.

"It's a scenario-based approach. That's what people want to know," he said. "If I work 30 hours a week, what's going to happen? If I make $10 an hour, what's going to happen? Those are not easy questions to answer without WorkWORLD."

Virginia officials are considering working with the VCU employment institute.

Hill said developing and maintaining the software means digging deep into policies to find out exactly what they mean. Often, programmers will find conflicting language between benefits programs, and even within the same program, about what a recipient can or can't do.

But the goal remains the same: If the Employment Support Institute can deal with the complexities head on, those receiving benefits won't have to.

Copyright Richmond Times-Dispatch, used with permission.