Up until recently, I had no idea that there were 2 different kinds of Social Security. That was when I decided to start making preparations to stop working in six months (or so) because of my autoimmune disease, Scleroderma.
I have worked pretty much all my life ever since high school, but never seemed to have enough extra money to put into a big savings or retirement account. I have a few thousand dollars in one, b ut nothing to write home about, and certainly not enough to retire on. And now at age 53, I find myself in need of retirement income. Sound familiar?
Because my medical condition qualifies me to receive disability income from Social Security (when the time comes that I c an no longer work a 9-5), I started researching to see how much I would get. At first I almost keeled over right then and there when my initial Google search determined that the monthly Social Security amount for a single person in Georgia was $750 per month. How does one live on $750 per month? The rent on my Atlanta area townhouse alone is $1000. I started to panic, went into "freeze" mode, and the research stopped.
And then last week an anal co-worker made me so angry that I decided that I would rather retire than be stressed out every day at work by the likes of her, and so the research began again.
It was then (to my great relief and surprise), that I discovered that there are 2 differ ent versions of Social Security. The two programs are SSI (Social Security Insurance) and SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance). Both programs provide financial benefits but the requirements for each program are very different.
Basically, SSDI is offered to people who have worked many years and accumulated enough work credits to qualify for a certain benefit amount. But SSI if available to people who have a limited (or no) work history and therefore have not accumulated enough work credits to qualify for SSDI.
So apparently back when I thought that $750 was the maximum amount that I would receive, I was looking at the SSI (wrong) information, instead of the SSDI information.
Some of you may have received a statement from Social Security at some point telling you what amount you would receive from them if you retired at age 62, at age 67, at age 70, etc. That document will also tell you what amount you would receive from them if you were to become disabled. And in my case, the disability amount (based off my 2017 income) would be $1823.00 – much more than the $750 that I originally thought. And if I am able (health wise) to finish out working the rest of 2018 and retire sometime in 2019, than the amount would go up even more based on my 2018 income.
I would never have imagined in a million years that I would be making plans to live off of Social Security at age 53, but thank God that it is available for when I need it.
I pray that I maintain my current level of health so that I can actually do as I have planned and stay at my day job for the rest of 2018, which will in turn increase the amount of Social Security that I receive when I finally do retire. And of course, I also plan to continue to write for Steemit on the side, which will also add to my retirement income.
Hopefully none of you will ever need to file for Disability income, but if you should, I hope that this information was helpful.