An Overview Of Social Security Disability
If you are unable to work, then you might be worried about your situation. Without a steady income, bills can rapidly accumulate, especially if you have a disability that requires medical attention. In order to secure your livelihood, you should consider applying for social security disability.
What is Social Security disability?
As you probably know, disability benefits exist as a sort of social safety net. Regardless of what might be mentioned in politics and the media, Social Security in the United States has been fairly consistent throughout the years, and was recently expanded. Therefore, you can reasonably rely on Social Security disability to provide some support if you are unable to work.
However, you must pass several key criteria in order to actually qualify for disability benefits.
- Are you unemployed? If you work, then you can't really qualify for disability benefits. The purpose of disability benefits is not to directly compensate individuals for their disabilities, but rather to replace their income with a small wage to survive on. It is important to note that you can make some money while still being below the threshold at which you will be officially considered employed for the purposes of disability benefits (around $12,000 a year).
- Is the injury severe enough to prevent work? Naturally, disabilities need to be severe in order for the government to give you financial compensation. The system would be fairly easily exploitable if individuals could use any minor injury as an excuse for disability benefits. The legitimacy of your disability will be verified by the government before your claim is accepted.
- Does your injury automatically qualify you? As a shortcut, the government allows some injuries to instantly qualify for disability benefits. This allows individuals with particularly severe injuries to get the benefits that they need as quickly as possible. If your injury does not fall on this list, then you will need to continue down the checklist.
- What impact does your injury have on your prior work? If your injury prevents you from doing the work that you used to do, then there is a good chance that you will qualify for disability compensation. If your injury is not severe enough to significantly impact your capacity to perform the job you had before your injury, then you might not get disability compensation.
- Do you have transferable skills? If you are capable of doing other work, then you might not actually qualify for disability. However, if you are totally unable to perform any job, then you are almost guaranteed to qualify for disability compensation.
- For more information, contact an office like Duncan Disability Law SC.