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What Happens If I Sign Up Now For My Social Security If I'm Drawing Disability?

Hi Larry, My question is. I am currently on disability, What happens if I go ahead and sign up now. I will be 65 in November. Will I draw more or less Will disability stop added to. I just don’t know. Thank you for your help

Hi. My answer assumes that what you're receiving is Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits. If you switch from SSDI benefits to Social Security retirement benefits prior to your full retirement age (FRA), your benefit rate goes down. That's because Social Security retirement benefits are reduced for age if you start collecting them prior to FRA, whereas SSDI benefits aren't reduced for age regardless of how old you are when you start drawing the SSDI benefits.

Basically, drawing SSDI benefits is like collecting your unreduced full retirement age Social Social benefit rate early. That's why SSDI benefits automatically convert to regular Social Security benefits with no change in the benefit rate when a person reaches FRA. The only times that a person may want to consider switching from SSDI to regular retirement benefits prior to FRA is if their SSDI benefits are being offset because they're also receiving worker's compensation or public disability benefits (PDB), or if they have a spouse or child who could collect higher auxiliary benefits if the disabled worker was collecting retirement benefits instead of SSDI.

Best, Jerry.

Posted: 
Oct 9 2021 - 6:50pm
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