The Social Security Disability Five Month Waiting Period

How to prove you are disabled
and win disability benefits

Social Security disability requires a five month waiting period beginning with the month following the month that an individual became unable to perform substantial gainful activity (SGA) or work activity. For example, if a person become disabled on 06/11/2018 their five month waiting period will last through 11/30/2018. They will actually be entitled to their monthly Social Security disability benefits beginning 12/18.

Does an individual have to necessarily wait for five months after being given a social security disability award notice before they can begin receiving disability benefits? No, and that is because the five month waiting period may have already been “served” if a person’s onset date is set far enough back and particularly if the case has “dragged on” for many months, or perhaps years.

Determining a person's onset date can have a major effect on A) whether or not they are required to lose their first five months of benefits, B) whether or not they will have to wait to receive coverage under medicare, and C) how much back pay they may receive.

A claimant's onset date will be determined solely on the existence of medical records that document that the individual was, in fact, disabled as of a certain date. This is why disability representatives (meaning a claimant's disability representative or an attorney) typically seek to establish the most favorable onset date possible by seeking older as well as newer records. It is also why claimants who fail to file their appeals on time and then later reapply disadvantage themselves: by starting over with a new filing date, they potentially lose thousands of dollars in back pay.

Additional information:

Do you get disability back payments from social security?

Return to: SSDRC, or the Questions, Answers, Tips, and Advice page

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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