How Do They Calculate Your SSDI Benefits?
Sometimes people think it’s the severity of your disability that determines how much you’ll receive in disability benefits.
For Social Security Disability, it doesn’t work that way.
Other types of benefits or insurance plans may have sliding scales. With Social Security, you either get benefits or you don’t.
Your SSDI benefits are calculated using this key factor: your average lifetime earnings.
You must work a certain amount to qualify for SSDI.
Social Security adds up your work record using what it calls “work credits.” Generally you must earn 40 work credits to get disability benefits, 20 of them in the 10 years before your health problems forced you to stop working.
Work credits are measured in pay. In 2023, every $1,640 you earned on the job counted as one credit. The dollar value of a credit changes over time. Another name you may hear for work credits is “quarters of coverage.”
Even though you get these credits by working, it doesn’t mean your disability benefits will match your wages when you worked. The SSDI benefit formula has its own pay scale, and places you depending on your credits.
- The average SSDI payment for everyone who received benefits came in at $1,483 per month in 2023.
- Social Security set the maximum benefit (which people rarely receive) at $3,627.
Another disability benefits program run by Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), works differently.
Receiving SSI benefits depends on having limited economic means and doesn’t require any kind of work record.
The payments you get under SSI don’t vary as much for each person. It’s one national number.
In 2023, SSI was $914 for individuals and $1,371 for couples.
The specifics of your situation are more important than national averages.
To learn more, you can get a free evaluation of your case from the Tulsa Social Security Disability attorneys at Troutman & Troutman.
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How Can My Social Security Disability Payments Increase? Or End?
Once you’re approved for benefits and know your monthly Social Security Disability amount, you may wonder: “Can it change?”
Yes. The size of your disability check doesn’t stay the same forever.
Annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) will increase your disability payments bit by bit. The government grants those raises to account for price increases in the overall economy (inflation) that make life more expensive over time.
You also can lose disability benefits if you’re able to return to work and earn more than what Social Security considers “substantial gainful activity.”
If it’s hard for you tell whether your health would allow you to work again, you can take a “trial work period,” to test how you’ll do at work. If you find you can’t handle being back on the job, you can continue getting your disability benefits.
Listen, getting disability benefits isn’t like winning a jackpot. Benefits pay enough to help you keep up with basic necessities.
But when health problems have knocked you out of work and you might be wondering how you’ll even afford your next meal, these benefits are a crucial financial cushion for you.
They preserve your dignity and a measure of independence.
In Oklahoma, talk to the disability lawyers at Troutman & Troutman for support in claiming the disability benefits you are entitled to receive.
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You may be trying to determine if Social Security Disability benefits are right for you. You may be facing a long, complicated benefits application. Or you’ve applied and been denied. Now what? The Troutman & Troutman Oklahoma disability attorneys can help.
Disability Attorneys Answer Your Questions about Social Security
Your life has been disrupted by health problems. You’ve had to leave work. You’re worried about money. Social Security Disability benefits can provide relief, but they’re complicated. You’ve got a lot of questions. The Troutman & Troutman Tulsa disability lawyers have answers.
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