Would waiting until age 62 help me get Social Security disability benefits?

Question:

I applied for SSDI at age 60, shortly before my 61st birthday. My appeal hearing before the ALJ is apt to take place in early 2019, a few months before my 62nd birthday, in May 2019. I'm confused about how my benefits might be calculated -- and whether it's better to have waited age 62 (or not). So far, I'm handling my application pro se. Any information or guidance you give me about this would be much appreciated.

Answer:

Age 62 is important for the purpose of Social Security retirement, since it's the age of eligibility for early retirement benefits, but it's not so important for Social Security disability insurance (SSDI) benefits. In fact, depending on the severity of your medical condition, Social Security may or may not take your age into account when deciding whether you are disabled.

If you meet the requirements of one of Social Security's official disability listings, Social Security won't look at your age at all. Likewise, if you have a physical impairment that doesn't allow you to do even sit-down work, of any kind, Social Security won't consider your age. Similarly, if you have a mental impairment that limits you so much that you can't do even simple, routine work, Social Security won't care what age you are.

However, if you have a physical impairment that limits you to doing medium, light or sedentary work, then you are much more likely to be found disabled if you are 60 or older. Social Security considers disability applicants 60 or older to be "closely approaching retirement age," and for those over 60 who don't have any job skills that they could transfer to less strenuous work, they are eligible to be found disabled under the "medical-vocational grid rules." These grid rules take into account an applicant's age, education, job history, and physical capacity to determine whether he or she is disabled.

For instance, if you are over age 60 and your doctor has limited you to light work (lifting no more than 10 pounds frequently and standing and walking no more than 6 hours per day), you'll be found disabled – as long as Social Security finds you can't do your previous job and you don't have job skills or recent job training that you can use at another type of job. The same is true for those over 60 with a limitation to sedentary work. See our article on getting SSDI after age 60 for more examples.

But the grid rules for closely approaching retirement age apply equally to everyone between the ages of 60 and 66. So while being 59 and on the cusp of turning 60 can be important to a disability decision, the difference in applying for disability between the ages of age 61 and 62 is not.

And it's almost always in your favor to apply for disability benefits sooner than later, because you can only get retroactive benefits going back a year before you apply (if you were disabled before that).