You might have an idea that back pay is your past-due benefits that are amassed for a time until approval arrives. But how much time it would exactly take? To know that keep reading because this article goes over the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) back pay timeline. Firstly, it is essential to know how the back pay works so that you can understand the time it takes throughout the period is worth it.
How does back pay work?
If either of the benefits; be it Social Security Disability Insurance or the Supplemental Security Income are confirmed, you will get your assistance. However, you will not always receive your back pay instantaneously after your case has been approved.
Instead, you may have to go another few months, (most probably 5 months), of trying hard to make ends meet. The process might take longer if the case is in hands of an administrative law judge. Your accrued benefits are decided upon from the time you register or assert your disability, known as the established onset date.
An administrative law judge or a DDS examiner will understand the established onset date to be one written on your medical records provided to them. Your back pay disbursement is dependent on the factor of eligibility over both kinds of benefits if you are either suitable for the SSI benefits or SSDI benefits. Both types could have influenced the benefits.
Upon receiving only SSDI benefits, your back pay will be available to you in a complete sum, not in small amounts or installments. In contrast, you would receive your SSI Back Pay incrementally. If you are considered eligible for both the benefits, then it might take longer to receive the benefits than if you are only getting SSDI benefits.
Back pay is adjusted by your disability claim filed to date and the time Social Security Administration (SSA) selects when your disability is commenced.
Furthermore, SSI back pay is only granted in small amounts for a more extended time, so you cannot receive a lump sum, like the case with SSDI. As the lump sum expenses would put much stress on SSI’s monetary funds.
How to get Social Security back pay?
SSDI benefits can mount up from the first date of the claim submission or even twelve months before that date, minus the five-month waiting period. To conclude, the more time it takes to get your approval and an increased waiting period, the more it affects you.
When does the process of back payment begin?
Often applicants receive their initial installment of SSDI back pay two months following the approval of their disability. However, after the issued approval, if you are found to be disabled a long time before the application for the disability, it is likely the case that you would be eligible to get retroactive SSDI payments over 12 months.
How much time until you get your back pay?
5-month waiting period
The five-month waiting period is the silent eradication of your potential benefits for five months. So the less waiting period you go through, the less it will adversely affect you. For example, if your claim approves five months after applying, you will not get back pay. If your claim gets approved after 12 months, you will get seven months of back pay.
If your request is accepted two years after applying, you will be authorized to 1 year of back pay. Furthermore, you will receive your back pay owed under SSDI as a single amount, even though the ‘when’ of installment showing up might be erratic. At times an individual gets ordinary advantages preceding the back pay. However, on different occasions, back pay is paid beforehand.
Your advantages change as per your Social Security’s bonus counterbalance arrangements. The measure of SSI benefits granted depends on an inquirer’s pay, so on the off chance that you fit the bill for benefits under both SSDI and SSI, your back pay under SSDI will consider paying for SSI purposes.
When you get the back pay, your SSI advantages will consequently diminish to adjust this back pay. Your SSDI back pay determines the acclimation to SSI benefits as accessible to you all through the disability period.
SSDI vs. SSI Benefits
The type of benefits you receive depends on what type of social security back pay you have applied for. If you are disabled, then you can obtain SSDI benefits if you have adequate work experience or if you are poor then you are eligible for SSI benefits. However, you can receive both benefits too. Funds for back payments are released based on the months between your submission and approval time.
Many people apply for the benefits, so it takes some time to process each application. For that reason, the duration between your date of approval and the issue date of your application stretches. For SSDI or Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, five-month is the duration before you get back pay until the waiting period completes.
One more type of back payment to the receivers of SSDI benefits is retroactive benefits. Compensation of retroactive benefits begins from the months when you become disabled, called the established onset date, and the day you request SSDI benefits. These benefits are only achievable if you are fit for them, and it depends on how early you seek them.
Back payments are available in both types of benefits without any form of interest. However, retroactive benefits are only available in the SSDI Program.
12-Month Cap
In SSDI back pay, a 12-month cap is inclusive.
For instance, if it takes two years for your SSDI application to be approved then you would naturally assume that you will get 19 months back pay. This means, two years to the Established Onset Date, less than 5 months holding up period. Nonetheless, that year cap implies that you will just get a year of SSDI back pay.
What is the procedure for back pay?
Back benefits in SSDI cases
You will earn these SSDI benefits, in any event, till the date you signed up for them. The degree of the back pay you acquire has no bounds or limitations. However, if you want to have an estimated value of the amount you will get via SSDI you need to take into account your EOD or the established onset date. The SSA or judge will evaluate your EOD over the time you stopped working. Chances are, you might receive one year of retroactive benefits if you had registered for the SSDI benefits before the epoch of your EOD. It is best to believe you could get paid 12 months earlier in this case.
However, you will have to prove that you are disabled for a good seventeen months before the date of your application if you want the 12-month retroactive benefits in return. This measure is in place due to SSDI having a waiting period of five months in which SSA does not recompense you after your disability onset date.
SSI Back Pay
In this case, the Social Security grants back your pay starting from the month you requested for these benefits or the month succeeding your defensive recording period. There is no five-month holding up period or retroactive advantages. So, you cannot get the benefits from the installments earlier than the months you applied for the SSI back pay.
Generally, you will earn SSI back pay in three quotas, in numbers of a few thousand dollars, over semi course of the year. Your initial two installments will each not surpass a month of your SSDI benefits thrice.
A particular case for this cutoff exists where an SSI beneficiary has obligations identified with essential clinical, food, apparel, or lodging costs. On this occasion, the SSI beneficiary ought to educate SSA about these obligations and request an exception as far as possible. You can acquire the remainder of the back pay in the third portion, with no restriction on the third portion’s measure.
There are two or three conditions where an SSI beneficiary will get one single amount of back benefits. In situations where an individual is to pass on a year of endorsement, or if an individual is not yet qualified for SSI benefits, all the back advantages are to be paid without a moment’s delay.
Suppose the individual has applied and got approval for both SSDI and SSI and may fit the bill for back profits by the same month’s two projects. In that matter, Social Security will counterbalance the sums so you won’t get the full installments of both SSDI and SSI in the same month. SSA issues two separate award notices, one for SSI and one for SSDI when a simultaneous case is endorsed.
Conclusion
Keeping the SSI or SSDI back pay timeline in mind, it is best to apply for them at the start of your disability period to help you through tough times. Hence, knowing about the duration and the plethora of what it entails, it is necessary and wise to read.