Disability Claims Attorney Mooresville NC

People applying for disability benefits are often unaware of what Social Security considers a disabling condition and what the non-medical eligibility requirements are for receiving benefits. They are also confused as to why their claims take so long to process or how their applications could possibly be denied. I hope I can clear up some of these issues and misconceptions with a newsletter focused on Social Security Disability.

This will be part one, where I will outline some basic concepts on being eligible for disability benefits. In part two, I will cover the Social Security Administration’s definition of disability and the process of applying for and receiving benefits.

Note: the following are general guidelines and rules for being eligible. They come with a long list of possible exceptions. Only the SSA can make an official determination on someone's eligibility for benefits.

Part One - Non-Medical Eligibility

In order to receive disability benefits from the Social Security Administration, you must be eligible for benefits in the first place, regardless of your medical condition. The SSA has two disability programs, and each has its own rules for eligibility. In simple terms, Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) is for those who stopped working due to their disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is for those who are both disabled and poor.

To be eligible for Disability Insurance Benefits, you must have worked long enough in your entire career and enough in the ten years prior to becoming disabled, and of course paid Social Security taxes while you were working. Paying these taxes is called earning "credits" (you get one credit for every three months of work/taxes) and earning enough credits to be eligible for benefits is called being "insured."

In my experience, most people will meet the "total work/credits" requirement. For example, a person disabled at age 40 will need only 5 years of work (20 credits) in his career and a 50-year old would need only 7 years. It's the "recent work" requirement where people run into problems. It requires that disability claimants work at least 5 out of the 10 years prior to the date they became disabled. For example, if you were to retire early at age 50 after a long working career, you would remain "insured" for the next five years and could receive benefits if you became disabled in that time period. But if you were to become disabled six years after you retired, you could not receive DIB because you worked only four out of the past ten years. Instead, you will have to test your SSI eligibility (see below) and/or wait until you can receive retirement benefits in your 60's.

(There are some exceptions. If you became disabled before the age of 30 or younger, the "recent work" requirement is working half the years since you turned 21. Also, widows and widowers may receive DIB based on their deceased spouse's work history, and persons who became disabled as children may receive DIB if a parent is either deceased or currently receiving retirement or disability benefits from the SSA).

The other SSA disability program is called Supplemental Security Income. In contrast to DIB, eligibility for SSI is strictly poverty-based. A person's work history is completely irrelevant. Persons can be eligible for SSI and never work a day in their life (such as those born with severe mental or physical handicaps), but they do have to have little to no assets and little to no monthly income. If you are disabled and are below the SSI limits in assets and income, then SSI benefits will boost your assets and income back up to the limit amounts. The exact figures used to determine eligibility vary state by state, year by year, and also depend on your marital status and whether your income (if any) is earned or unearned. Some assets are not counted, such as your primary home and primary vehicle. If you apply for SSI, then you will have to answer a number of questions about your financial resources and produce tax records so that your eligibility and potential benefit amount can be determined by the SSA.

If you have the right amount of Social Security credits and/or have assets and income below certain levels, then you are eligible for disability benefits. Determining eligibility, unfortunately, is only the first step in what could be a long process. In Part Two, I'll go over what applicants must go through to actually show they are, in fact, disabled.