CONSIDERING A DISABILITY FILING? FIRST STEP

FIRST, FIND OUT IF YOU ARE COVERED BY THE SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY PROGRAM.  NOT EVERYONE IS.


Are you considering filing for Social Security disability?  The important first step is to find out whether you are covered by the Social Security Act?  Not all workers are covered.  You have to have worked for a sufficient number of calendar quarters to be covered or to have "insured status."  Generally, if you have worked 5 out of the previous 10 years, you should have insured status.  (Very young workers won't need as much work to be covered).

When you work, the federal government deducts 7.65% of your gross pay which goes into a special trust fund to pay for Social Security and Medicare.  Your employer matches this, so 15.3% of your earnings are actually paid into the trust fund under your name and Social Security number.  This is how you accumulate the required quarters of coverage needed to be insured under the Social Security disability program.

If a person stops working, his or her disability coverage will usually continue for about 4 years, then it will expire.  The expiration date is called the Date Last Insured (DLI).  An individual usually cannot file a claim for a disability which begins after the Date Last Insured (DLI).

So, a very critical consideration before filing a new disability claim is:  What is your Date Last Insured.  For example, if your DLI was12/31/14 and you became disabled after that date, you may not be able to file a new claim under Title 2.  (SSI does not require a work history, so Title 16 claims may still be possible).

We often encounter persons who have dropped out of the workforce a few years ago, have recently become disabled, but find they do not have Title 2 coverage with Social Security.  This can occur, for example, when women stop working when a child is born.  It can also occur when work is only part time or sporadic.  

So the first question is always:  Am I covered for Social Security disability (Title 2)?  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GETTING MONEY FROM SSDI

SSDI stands for Social Security Disability Insurance .  When you first began working, the Government deducted a percentage of your wages, called a FICA tax.  This continued as long as you worked, in most cases.  This money was matched by your employer and set aside in a government trust fund to help you if you later became disabled and could not work. SSDI is a type of government sponsored insurance program, usually called "Social Security disability insurance."  To get benefits out of SSDI, you must prove  that you have a medical disability so severe that you cannot work any full-time job; that this disability has lasted, or is expected to last, for at least 12 consecutive months. That sounds simple but Social Security has made it rather difficult to prove that you are disabled.  One reason is that their definition of 'disability' is so strict.  You usually must prove that you cannot perform even simple, unskilled work at the sedentary (sitting) leve
Read more

POST HEARING EVIDENCE

Many people assume that a Social Security disability case is over when the hearing has been held.  This isn't always the case.  Often there is post hearing work that should be done to achieve the best chance of a favorable decision. Everyone at a disability hearing works under pressure.  This includes the claimant, the representative, the vocational expert and even the administrative law judge.  Hearings are generally limited to less than one hour.  The judge will ask questions that place the claimant under stress to answer correctly.  The representative or attorney will be asked to respond to procedural issues or points of law that place him or her under pressure.  The judge must constantly conduct the hearing so that it follows Social Security laws, rules and regulations.  Further, the judge must form accurate hypothetical questions for the vocational expert based on the medical and vocational evidence in the file and upon the claimant's testimony.  The vocational expert th
Read more

PARTIALLY FAVORABLE DECISIONS ON DISABILITY

You attended a hearing on your Social Security disability claim.  A few weeks later, you receive a Notice of Decision in the mail that says you have received a Partially Favorable decision.  Does this mean that you are only partially disabled, not fully disabled? ANSWER:  No.  Social Security does not make awards for partial disability.  You are either disabled or not disabled.  There is no such category as "partially disabled" within Social Security law. A "partially favorable" decision means that the administrative law judge has found you to be disabled.  However, he or she has changed some material fact in your application.  Most often, this change involves the established onset date--the date you were found to have become disabled.  For example, in your application you may have alleged that you became disabled on June 1, 2012.  After reviewing the facts of the case, the judge may have decided that you did not become disabled until September 1, 2012.  Theref
Read more