Disability Benefits

• The government pays disability benefits through to programs, Social Security disability and Supplemental Security Income, SSI. If you qualify for benefits, other members of your household may also qualify. A spouse that's 62 or older, a spouse any age caring for a disabled child or one under age 16, unmarried children under age 18 or 19 if they're a full-time student in elementary or secondary school and disabled children whose disability began before age 22.
  
  

Preliminary Tests for Disability Qualification

• In order to receive Social Security disability you must first pass a recent work test and duration of work test. For the duration of work test, if you have the disability before 24, you must have worked 1.5 years of the last 3 years. Between 24 and 31, you must work half the time for the period starting the quarter you turned 21 and ending when you were disabled. After 31, you must work five out of the last 10 years. For duration of work, you must work a specified number of years based on your age. For those under 28, you have to work at least 1.5 years, which increases at various ages to 9.5 years at 65.
  
  

Qualifying Questions

• If you work and make over a specified amount, the Social Security Administration, SSA, disqualifies immediately. The agency also looks at the severity of the disability. They'll want to know whether it limits your ability to do basic things such as remembering, walking or sitting for at least a year. If it does, then the agency looks at a list of medical conditions called Impairments. If it's on the list, you automatically qualify. If it's not, they question whether you can work as you did before the disability. If you can't, the agency then looks at whether you can do any type of work based on your age, medical condition, past work, education and skills. If the answer is no, they deem you disabled.
  
  

Appeal

• If the Social Security Administration, SSA, denies your disability claim, you have a right to an appeal. You can use an attorney to represent you. In order for your representative to receive payment both of you must first sign a fee agreement and SSA must approve it. Once approved, SSA sends a written statement to you on how much the representative can charge. If SSA approved your claim and gave you past-due benefits, the representative can receive compensation as long as they're no more than the smallest of 25 percent of the past due benefits or $6,000. If SSA doesn't approve the fee agreement, they also notify you in writing.
  
  

Payment

• Once SSA approves disability payments, they pay them for the sixth full month of disability. If you were disabled mid January, the sixth full month of disability would be July. Since recipients of any Social Security benefit receive it a month later, your payment would be in August.