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Disability Insurance Benefits

Social Security Disability Insurance pays benefits to you and certain members of your family if you are “insured”. To qualify to receive Title II social security disability benefits, in addition to being disabled, you must be fully insured under the social security program. That means that you must have worked for a certain period of time before you become disabled. Your financial resources are irrelevant. You will not be disqualified from receiving social security disability benefits based upon your financial assets. You do not have to show financial need to qualify for these benefits.

As soon as you become disabled and are no longer working, you may apply at any Social Security office.

As soon as you become disabled and are no longer working, you may apply at any Social Security office. You may file by telephone, mail, or by visiting the social security office near you. You can find the office address in the blue pages of your local telephone book.

Social Security Disability benefits will not begin until the sixth full month of disability. This is referred to as the waiting period, which begins with the first full month after the onset of your disability. Therefore, you should apply as soon as your disability begins so that you can start receiving checks after your waiting period ends.

The Social Security Administration uses a formula based on your average lifetime earnings and the total number of years you have worked to calculate your Social Security Disability benefit amount. You can receive up to a maximum of approximately $1,500 per month depending on the past earnings. If you have children under age 18, their custodial parent could receive additional benefits, up to 50 percent of your monthly benefit amount.

Supplemental Security Income

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) pays benefits based on financial need. To qualify for Title XVI SSI benefits, you must be disabled and your financial resources cannot exceed a certain maximum amount. The asset limitation is $2,000.00 per individual and $3,000.00 per couple. However, there is no requirement that you had been working for any particular period of time before you become disabled.

Being Disabled

To be disabled…you must not only be unable to do your normal work, but be unable to do any other work

To be disabled for either Title II or Title XVI benefits, you must not only be unable to do your normal work, but be unable to do any other work that exists in the national economy. To determine that the Social Security Administration looks at your age, educational background, prior work experience and limitations caused by your medically determined impairments and compares all of this to the mental and physical requirements of all jobs.

What If I Am Denied Benefits?

You have 60 days to file an appeal after…your claim has been denied

You have 60 days to file an appeal after the Social Security Administration informs you that your claim has been denied. When your claim is denied for the first time, you request a “reconsideration” of the denial of your claim.

When a reconsideration is requested, an individual at the Social Security Administration who did not participate in making the decision to deny your initial application for benefits reviews your file. All of the evidence that was considered when the original decision was made to deny your claim and any additional evidence that has been submitted since the first denial of your claim is reviewed. Generally, most of the reconsiderations involve a review of your entire file without you being present and without any kind of a hearing.

If the reason that you cannot work relates to such things as pain, fatigue, shortness of breath or psychological problems, your claim is likely to be denied at the first two steps because the effects of pain, fatigue, shortness of breath or psychological problems are not carefully considered.

Why Should I Appeal?

After the reconsideration of your claim, if the Social Security Administration again denies your claim, you may request a hearing. This hearing will be conducted by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and you will be able to tell your story about what is going on in your life.

Your representative will have the opportunity to present evidence and explain to the judge why you believe that you are disabled and entitled to receive social security benefits. Also, your representative has the right to review all of the documents in the file that the Social Security Administration has created and provide new information and evidence at the hearing.

The judge will ask you questions and will listen carefully to what you have to say and will thoroughly consider how your pain, fatigue shortness of breath and psychological problems affect you if they are reasonably related to your medically determined impairments.

Further, your representative will also have the opportunity to make arguments to the judge about how the evidence should be construed and why the judge should find that you are disabled and entitled to full social security benefits. This step is where your case has its best chance to be successful.