People seeking Social Security disability benefits may not know there are two separate programs: the DIB program and the SSI program. In this video, Lafayette Social Security Disability attorney Jason Weaver reviews the similarities and differences between the two, and he explains how his office assists people who have been denied benefits and need legal assistance.
Video Transcription:
Most people think of disability as one program. It’s actually two programs, okay. The first one is what we call Disability Insurance Benefits or DIB. That works like a traditional insurance program. As you are working, your employer is withholding taxes and sending them to the government, your FICA taxes. Or you’re paying a self-employment tax to the IRS. What that does is that gives you what we call quarters of coverage, if you are earning over a certain level. Those quarters of coverage mean that if you are declared disabled within the time period, you have coverage. Then you can get Disability Insurance Benefits.
There’s a complicated formula that the administration uses to determine exactly how much your monthly benefit would be. You can actually log on to MySSA.gov, and you can make a little profile. And it’ll show you that if you were disabled today, here’s what your monthly benefit would be. It goes back on your earnings records of a number of years. That is the best program to be under, the better program to be under. But there is a work requirement there. That you would have to work for a certain amount of time. That is the DIB program.
SSI is what is called Supplemental Security Income. That is a program that you don’t have to have ever have worked. But what it is, is it is an income-based program. And that you have to have under a certain threshold of assets to your name. And under a certain threshold of monthly income. But still be disabled under the rules of the administration. The standard of whether you are disabled is the same under the SSI program and a Disability Insurance Benefits program. It’s just the eligibility requirements to actually get under the program are a little bit different.
If you’ve been denied Social Security disability benefits, give me a call 337-984-8020. We’d love to speak with you about it.
June 11, 2021