If you are sitting in your dark room, it’s 2 in the morning, and you have been trying to calculate your social security disability benefits for several hours, we understand. However, no need to rack your brain anymore, because you can schedule a quick free consultation with an Everett calculation of social security disability benefits attorney to estimate how much you will receive in SSI or SSDI benefits.
While we strongly recommend calculating your future social security disability benefits with a skilled lawyer (otherwise, your calculations can be terribly inaccurate), we are still going to offer you the tips on how you can calculate your future Social Security Disability (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments.
In order to predict how much you are entitled to get from social security, you need to understand that the amount you will be eligible to receive in SSI or SSDI benefits will be based on your average lifetime earnings prior to the onset date of your disability or impairment.
“Contrary to the popular belief, the amount of social security disability benefits that you will receive has no relation to the severity of your disability or your current income,” explains our experienced calculation of social security disability benefits attorney in Everett.
Fact #1: The vast majority of people who qualify for SSDI benefits receive between $800 and $1,800 each month.
Fact #2: The average SSDI payment in 2019 was $1,234.
As you may have realized by now, the amount of money that you can receive as your SSDI or SSI payment is unique for each and every individual. In a nutshell, the amount of your social security disability benefits is directly correlated to the average amount of income on which you have paid Social Security taxes in your lifetime.
These average earnings are also called “covered earnings” and average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). When the Social Security Administration (SSA) knows your average covered earnings, it will apply a certain formula to calculate your primary insurance amount (PIA). This PIA will serve as the base figure that will be used in calculating your social security disability benefits.
In case you are wondering, this mystery formula is basically a combination of fixed percentages of different amounts of income, which are called “bend points” and are adjusted each year.
Although this may sound super confusing and overly complicated already, wait until you hear this. The amount of your social security disability benefits can be reduced by several factors. Primarily, your SSDI or SSI payment can be reduced if you are currently receiving other disability payments.
Our Everett disability benefits lawyer says that the amount of your SSDI benefits will not be affected if you receive disability benefits from a private and long-term disability insurance policy. If you receive government-regulated disability benefits, on the other hand, these benefits can and will reduce your SSDI benefits. In case you are wondering, government-regulated disability benefits include workers’ compensation benefits and temporary state disability benefits.
For this reason, the SSA uses the same rule when calculating social security disability benefits. And that rule is this: you cannot receive more than 80 percent of the average amount that you earned prior to your disability in SSDI and other disability benefits.
Also, do not forget that you may be entitled to receive social security disability back pay, the amount of which will be based on the monthly amount of your SSDI or SSI benefits. We know, too many figures and too much information to wrap your head around, which is why we advised you to schedule a free consultation with a lawyer from the beginning!
So what about that free case evaluation now? Contact Russell & Hill, PLLC, to discuss your disability case and calculate your future social security disability benefits. Call our offices at 425-212-9165 today.
