What Determines If You Are Covered for SSDI - Social Security disability Insurance

How to prove you are disabled
and win disability benefits

Social Security disability insurance (SSDI) coverage depends upon your age and your earnings prior to becoming disabled. Social Security sets the amount of earnings needed to earn one quarter of coverage. You can earn no more than four work credits work credits or quarters of coverage each year.

In order to be covered by Social Security disability, you must meet two requirements: you must be "fully insured" and "disability insured".

To be disability insured, you have to have earned a minimum amount of work credits dependent upon your age. If you are 24 years or younger, you must have a least six quarters of coverage in the three years prior to becoming disabled to be insured. Six quarters of coverage or work credits is the minimum amount needed to be eligible for Social Security disability.

Special rules affect the number of quarters of coverage needed to be eligible for SSDI if you are between the ages of 24 and 31 if you are statutorily blind, or you were previously entitled to SSDI. However if you are 31 years old or older, you are required to have at least twenty quarters of coverage to be disability insured.

If any of the situations apply to you, you should contact Social Security to determine if you are covered by SSDI.

The second requirement to be SSDI insured is that you must be "fully insured". In order to be fully insured, you must earn one quarter of coverage (work credit) for each year between the age of 21 and the age you became disabled. You have to have earned at least twenty work credits or quarters of coverage out of the forty quarters previous to becoming disabled.

For example, if you are 41 years old and have four quarters each year since you were 21, you have earned eighty quarters. You have earned at least twenty quarters in the last ten years so you are fully insured and currently insured. You must have worked five out of the ten years or twenty out of the last forty possible work quarters previous to becoming disabled in order to be currently covered for SSDI, Social Security disability.

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SSD and SSI are Federal Programs

The title II Social Security Disability and title 16 SSI Disability programs operate under federal guidelines and, therefore, the program requirements--medical and non-medical--apply to all states:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Recent approval and denial statistics for various states can be viewed here:

Social Security Disability, SSI Approval and Denial Statistics by state

Special Section: Disability Lawyers and unnecessary claim denials