Hi, I’m Tony Castelli, a Cincinnati personal injury trial attorney.  I also focus on Social Security disability and workers’ compensation.  My message today is about Social Security disability.  I’d like to talk to you about the difference between Social Security Disability, which is called SSD, and people call SSI, that's Supplemental Security Income.

Social Security Disability benefits are benefits that you get because you’ve paid into the system, and, usually, you have to have worked 5 out of the last 10 years.  So if you stop working after working for 5 years, you’ve got 5 years to prove you’re disabled.  If the time runs on past that, you will not be able to get Social Security Disability benefits, normally.

And, of course, for Social Security Disability and SSI, the baseline to get that benefit is to prove you're totally disabled from all gainful employment for at least one full year.

Now, SSI benefits, if you’ve never worked or you’ve never paid into the system or your coverage is lapsed, you can get SSI benefits, but that is dependent on having no income.

So that's the difference.  With Social Security Disability, that's like disability insurance you paid for, and whether you’ve got, you know, you're sitting on $100,000 or you’re living with somebody that's paying your rent, it doesn't matter.  That benefit comes to you regardless of how much money you have.  And 25 months after you get that benefit, you get Medicare, also.

Supplemental Security Income is different in the sense that that's based upon (a) being disabled, but (2) having no resources.  So if you do have some resources, you can have up to $2,000.00 in the bank.  You can't actually have a home, that's an excludable resource.  But if you would inherit some money or if you would go to work a little bit, dollar for dollar, your Supplemental Security Income would be cutoff.  

That's some of the differences between Social Security Disability and SSI.  And one of the main bigger differences is if you’ve been a hard worker and paid into the system, your Social Security Disability benefit could be as much as $1,800.00 to $2,200.00 per month, where SSI now is about $786.00.  

So thank you so much for listening about Social Security Disability and SSI.  Have a great day.