Most of us either personally know someone or have heard of someone who suffered such serious injuries at some point in their lives that they no longer are able to work as they once did.
If you’ve heard about them receiving a check each month to help them with their expenses, then it’s likely that it’s Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) that they’re getting. It’s a benefit extended to Americans who are unable to work due to injury or illness. It’s intended to help replace income that they lost.
What determines how much an individual will received in SSDI is contingent upon how long an individual worked in a job where Social Security was taken out of his or her pay. It also matters how old they were were when they were either injured or became ill relative to how long they’d been in the workforce.
Workers who suffered their disability before turning 28 are required to have worked 1.5 years in a job where they paid into the Social Security system in order to be eligible to receive SSDI. A worker who suffers a disability at the age of 60 must demonstrate that they worked in such a role for 9.5 years.
In order to qualify for SSDI, you’ll need to be able to prove that you worked for set amount of time relative to your age, which also happens to have occurred immediately before the time in which you became disabled.
Going for medical exams with designated doctors who have taken copious notes chronicling the severity of your injury is also important. In order to qualify for SSDI, your injury or illness should be so debilitating that any reasonable medical professional doesn’t expect you to recover from it for more than a year or that may not even resolve itself until your death.
How much you will receive is often a bit lower than what you’d otherwise have received had you been able to continue working until reaching retirement age.
If you’re disabled and are wondering if you may qualify to receive benefits to help bridge the gap and cover your expenses, then a Trenton SSDUI attorney can provide guidance in your case.
Source: The Motley Fool, “7 things you need to know about Social Security Disability benefits,” Matthew Frankel, accessed May 11, 2018