Social Security Disability benefits are based on a person’s earnings and their work history. This year, in 2018, a person must have earned $1,320 to receive one credit and a person can earn a maximum of 4 work credits per year. So how many credits must one have earned in order to qualify for SSD benefits? This depends on the applicant’s age and the type of benefit one is applying for.
To receive retirement benefits, a California resident who was born after 1929 must have worked for 10 years. Disability benefits depend on how old one was when they became disabled. So someone who got disabled before the age of 24, six credits are needed which means one and a half years of work and this should have been earned in the three years preceding the disability. Someone between the ages of 24 and 30 needs credits for half of the time between 21 years of age and the year they became disabled.
If the disabled applicant is over the age of 31, they would generally need a minimum of 20 credits earned in the 10 years right before the person became disabled. This would become equivalent to five years of work. Survivor benefits were covered in a post recently, outlining how a person who works and pays Social Security taxes passes away, their survivors may be eligible to receive SSD benefits.
Qualifying for SSD benefits requires a certain amount of work credits and if those are not demonstrated, then medical qualification is not even touched upon. It might be beneficial for people entering the workforce to understand their eligibility and what type of work they should be doing in order to qualify for benefits.