October 17 – Disability Freeze
Question: What is a disability freeze?
Answer: The concept behind the “disability freeze” is simple but powerful. For entitlement to regular Social Security retirement or survivors benefits a worker needs a minimum number of years of covered employment. In addition, the benefit amount is computed based on the average indexed earnings of the worker over his/her working lifetime. One consequence of a period of disability is that the worker will have years of little or no earnings. These years, if taken into account in computing a retirement benefit, would reduce, and in some cases eliminate entirely, future potential retirement benefits.
To prevent this, the disability freeze provisions, in effect, ignore periods of disability when computing a retirement or survivors benefit. Thus, the individual is “held-harmless” as far as their potential entitlement to other types of Social Security benefits.
As a result, when a person receives SSDI, Social Security puts their earnings record under a disability freeze, which prevents periods without work or with low earnings from affecting future eligibility for disability and retirement benefits.
Would you like to find out more about WIPA and your benefits? Contact your statewide WIPA Program-Project 20/20 if you have questions like our Daily Tips or want to learn more about working while receiving social security disability benefits. Call our North Augusta office at 803-279-9611 or the Ticket to Work Helpline at 1-866-968-7842. You can also complete a Contact Us or Self-referral Form.