This information may help claimants with representation, as well as those who are not represented by an attorney or non attorney representative. Understanding how the Social Security Disability system works can make the difference between winning or not winning the ssd and ssi benefits and backpay to which a person is entitled. |
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SSI, or supplemental security income, is a needs-based program. For those who have never worked, or those whose earnings in recent years have been low enough to result in a small Social Security benefit, or no benefit at all, SSI may be the only program they qualify for.
For those applicants whose social security disability benefit would be low, ssi does exactly what its name implies. It supplements. For example, if an approved claimant received title II (aka ssd, rsdi) monthly benefits in the amount of $385.00, an ssi award could be used to guarantee that the claimant's total monthly benefits were equal to a certain minimum amount. What is that minimum amount? The minimum is equal to the full monthly benefit amount for ssi, which is currently $623.00 per month. Therefore, in the example above, a title II recipient who received $385.00 per month might also receive an additional $238.00 in ssi to bring their total monthly benefits to $623.00, a sum equal to the full ssi monthly benefit amount. Of course, this scenario will not happen in every such case. Because ssi (unlike ssd-rsdi) has resource limits (currently, an individual cannot have more than $2,000.00 in disposable assets), many title II claimants will not be eligible to receive supplemental security income, no matter how low their ssd benefit amount is. Whether or not an individual's disability application will be for SSI, or basic social security disability, is determined by the individual who takes the claim at the social security office. Sometimes, in the case of a claimant whose earnings have been low, the application may be dual, or concurrent; that is, for both SSI and social security. In some states, such as North Carolina, a recipient of SSI automatically receives medicaid, a program which allows for a certain number of physician visits and prescriptions each month. Disability Advocates Help with Claims Free Case Evaluation |
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SOCIAL SECURITY LAWYER - SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY LAWYER REFERRAL ANSWERS TO YOUR SSD & SSI QUESTIONS PAGE 3 ANSWERS TO YOUR SSD & SSI QUESTIONS PAGE 4 |
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