what to do if you dont qualify for social security

When filing for Social Security disability benefits, yous must establish 2 things for the Social Security Administration (SSA). First, y'all must show that y'all are disabled according to their stringent definition of disability. Second, you lot must show that you lot are eligible for Social Security programs.

In the case of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), this is based on how much yous have worked in recent years. For Supplemental Security Income (SSI), this means you must bear witness that you have a fiscal need (over again, according to their guidelines and definition of need).

Filing for Social Security disability benefits without a stiff piece of work history is more difficult, but not incommunicable. While the SSA does require that you have worked, earned income, and paid into FICA in order to qualify for SSDI, the work requirements are non equally stringent as you may think.

If you practise not have a work history, you may still qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI is based on fiscal need, non on work history, allowing those who have not worked still qualify for benefits.

Regardless of your work history, y'all will still demand to see the medical requirements to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. This ways you will take to run across the qualifications listed in the Blue Book for the condition you are experiencing.

How Much Work is Required?

The work requirement is on a sliding calibration. Those who are younger or older volition accept an easier time qualifying with less piece of work history than those who are in their 30s and 40s.

The bones requirement is that y'all have worked at to the lowest degree one "quarter" each year for the past ten years, merely this is lessened somewhat in the case of workers who are not all the same quondam enough to have worked 10 years or those who are nearing retirement age and are more likely to be deemed incapable of adjusting to new kinds of work.

Quarters are a somewhat misleading term, notwithstanding. To earn a quarter of coverage, y'all don't demand to work a total quarter of the twelvemonth. As a matter of fact, yous tin earn four quarters of coverage (the maximum available in a single yr) within the showtime couple months of the year if you earn plenty money.

The amount of income (and FICA tax paid) required to earn a quarter of coverage is adjusted on a yearly ground, only virtually wage earners will have trivial problem earning at to the lowest degree one quarter of coverage per twelvemonth.

Put together what employment history when applying for SSDI. While the regulations regarding employment history and eligibility are fairly cut and dried, you lot may be surprised to find that you have earned more quarters of coverage than you lot may accept idea.

What If I Don't Have Enough Work Credits for Disability Benefits?

If you don't accept enough piece of work credits for disability, you still may exist able to qualify for disability benefits, yet you will demand to employ for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Benefits. SSI Benefits is a needs-based program.

It is only for individuals who have a disability that keeps them from working total time and have very piddling income. Unlike SSDI benefits, you lot do non have to worry about work credits in order to exist awarded SSI benefits.

In order to qualify for SSI benefits, you demand to have a disability that keeps you from being able to work for at to the lowest degree 12 months or more and not take more $2,000 worth of assets or $3,000 worth of assets if y'all are married.

So, you tin can notwithstanding go disability benefits if you don't have enough work credits or if yous don't have a work history, but you volition need to employ for SSI benefits instead of SSDI benefits.

Why SSDI Requires Work Credits

SSDI benefits is an insurance program. Every fourth dimension yous become your paycheck at your piece of work, you lot pay premiums through Social Security deductions that your employer takes out of your paycheck to send to the government on your behalf.

That money that is taken out of your paycheck every time you become paid is used to fund programs like SSDI benefits and retirement benefits.

So in order to qualify for SSDI benefits, yous have enough work credits to qualify. Work credits are calculated by how erstwhile you are and how long you lot have worked.

In 2021, for example, you lot earn i credit for each $1,470 in wages. You tin can earn up to 4 work credits for each year you lot take worked.

How to Find Your Piece of work History

Each year the Social Security Administration provides a breakdown of your earnings, including your earnings for the previous year every bit well as a detailed report of your earnings history. Yous should receive a copy of this study by mail, but if y'all demand a copy sooner than when it is sent out, yous can request a Social Security Earnings report online or by phone.

Your earnings report will detail the years y'all worked, how much you made each twelvemonth, the corporeality you paid into SSDI and the corporeality of money you would receive if you were to go disabled based on your earnings history through the last complete year of data. (If you request this data in the centre of the year, the corporeality would exist based on information through the previous year.)

You can contact the Social Security Administration for more information about the data found in your earnings study. It'south a good idea to verify that the data included is accurate because this is what will determine your eligibility for SSI benefits and the amount yous will receive.

In the event that you haven't worked plenty to authorize for Social Security Disability benefits, y'all'll be able to become Supplemental Security Income benefits. Social Security has two programs to assist people who are incapable of working due to a debilitating status (or conditions).

Applying for SSI Instead

If you don't have enough quarters of coverage to qualify for SSDI, you should nonetheless apply for SSI. SSI is not based on your work history. Rather, it is based on your financial need and your inability. In society to authorize, y'all will need to report whatever earnings you have, too as any assets.

The income guidelines are somewhat stringent, and yous are not allowed to own more than than $2,000 worth of assets, excluding your home and a single vehicle.

If yous are disabled and you take worked for five out the past 10 years, you should apply for SSDI. If you lot haven't worked enough to qualify, or if yous income is depression enough (even if you practice qualify for SSDI), you should still apply for SSI.

How to Use for SSI

The outset pace to applying for is to fill out the application. You have some choices as to how you fill up it out: You can utilise online on the SSA website, you can print or pick up an application and mail it in, or yous can file in person at your local SSA office.

The benefit to filing online is that your application is considered agile from the moment y'all start it. If you lot want to be considered for back pay and it takes some time for you lot to gather all of your information, your showtime date is based on when you starting time working on the application, not when you submit it.

If filing a paper application, yous can submit a Protective Filing Date (PFD) to indicate your intent to submit an application. A PFD is a written statement that indicates your intention to file a claim, and once submitted to the SSA information technology volition serve as the commencement date for your application fifty-fifty though you have not submitted your claim.

Later on you send in your initial application for SSI benefits, information technology will usually take the SSA between 30 to 90 days to become back to you with a decision. You lot have the option of appealing the SSA's decision if your claim is denied initially.

Medically Qualifying for SSI

In order to qualify for SSI, y'all must provide detailed information nearly your medical status and how it relates to you lot disability to work. The starting point is a report from your physician that details your medical history as it pertains to your diagnosis.

You lot should include all lab tests, claret test results, imaging results if applicative (including CT scans, MRI, x-rays etc), surgeries when applicable and your handling plan. Your treatment plan should item medications prescribed, treatments (chemotherapy, physical therapy, etc) and how y'all are responding to your treatment, as well every bit any side effects suffered as a issue of the handling.

You will be required to sign a release so that the SSC may contact your doctors with whatever questions they have, so brand sure you lot take a listing of all medical personnel who take worked on your case along with their contact information. Given that the SSA relies on the information provided to make a determination on your eligibility for SSI, you might consider working with a Social Security attorney who specializes in filing claims for disability benefits.

The advantage of hiring a lawyer is that a lawyer understands what medical evidence you need to file your claim and can help ensure that you have everything yous demand. Hiring a Social Security lawyer can help ease the stress of the filing procedure past having an abet or attorney working on your behalf.

Tin You Get Inability Benefits If You Never Worked?

If you have never worked, resulting in no work credits, yous may still qualify for inability benefits. This is because there are two types of disability benefits supported past the Social Security Administration (SSA). The first is based on accumulated work credits based on amount earned and years of work while the second is based on the value of income and assets that an applicant has.

Every bit long as your disability meets the SSA'due south Bluish Book criteria and you are inside the income limits then you can still go disability benefits regardless of never working.

SSI is a federally funded program paid through general tax revenues but not through Social Security taxes. Information technology provides monthly payments to those who take a express income and few resources. Information technology is in identify to come across the recipient'southward bones needs for food, clothing, and shelter. The corporeality paid depends on the recipients living arrangement and countable income. Yous may be eligible for SSI if you are living alone and if your resources are only $2,000 or less. For a couple the resources limit is $3,000. You lot don't need to have worked to qualify for SSI.

Those who are eligible for SSI must accept the following features:

• exist at least aged 65 years onetime, or blind or disabled;
• have a express income which includes wages, pensions, etc;
• possess limited assets that y'all own.

You can expect to receive I SSI a monthly amount of $795 if you are single and $1,191 for a couple.

How An Attorney Can Help Yous Apply for Disability Benefits

At that place are many atmospheric condition that authorize for disability benefits. If you have a inability without a work history, you lot can even so utilize for disability benefits and may exist approved, even if you don't have plenty work credits for disability benefits.

If that is the instance, then yous may want to work with a Social Security attorney. An chaser can help guide you through the Social Security awarding process.

Your chaser tin can look at your piece of work history, or lack thereof and could propose you that y'all may accept a better chance of getting approved if you apply for SSI benefits equally opposed to SSDI benefits.

A Social Security Attorney can help you get Social Security inability benefits, fifty-fifty if you do not have enough work credits. Your attorney tin help make certain y'all have all of your paperwork in social club, including records from your employer or past employers, your medical records and your financial information if you are applying for SSI benefits.

Maneuvering the Social Security Inability system can exist tricky at times, and about claimants should strongly consider using the services of an experienced Social Security Disability lawyer.

Non only are they thoroughly familiar with the laws regarding Social Security Disability, merely they also know how to put your claim together in a manner which is more than likely to outcome in an credence. Disability attorneys work on a contingency footing, meaning they will not be paid unless you win your disability claim.

Additional Resources

• How Does my Work History Affect My Disability Application?
• Work Credits

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Source: https://www.disabilitybenefitscenter.org/how-to/file-for-disability-without-work-history

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