Your PIA is your "Primary Insurance Amount." That is the Social Security term for the amount of your monthly benefit, should you retire or become disabled.
Your PIA depends on how much you have paid into the system. Social Security has a complicated formula to calculate it. In general, sporadic workers may have a disability
Social Security News has published the allowance and denial rates for Social Security disability claims (including SSI and concurrent claims) for fiscal year 2007. You can see the state by state breakdown here and here. These statistics are remarkable. As Charles Hall says in his post, note the disparities in the allowance/denial rates among
I have been thinking about the meaning of the "permits a rebuttable inference" language used by the judge in the previous post. All that means is that the judge may consider your prior work record as a factor when evaluating your credibility. It is a legalistic way of saying "I can hold your poor
One of the items an administrative law judge may consider when deciding your disability case is whether or not you were steadlily employed prior to applying for disability. All else being equal, a disability claimant with a twenty year work record tends to be looked at more favorably than a person with the same impairments
The Social Security Administration uses a 5-step sequential evaluation process to determine whether or not you will receive disability benefits.
Step 1: Are You Working?
Step 1 determines if a person is “working”, according to the Social Security Administration definition. Earning more than this amount a month as an employee is enough for disqualification from
Your mental health condition can be the basis for a successful Social Security disability or SSI claim, if the condition is severe enough to prevent you from working.
Simply having a diagnosis such as “anxiety,” “depression” or “bipolar disorder,” is not enough for the Social Security Administration to grant you benefits. Rather, you must
If your disability claim is denied after a hearing with an administrative law judge, you have the right to request review of that denial by the Social Security Appeals Council. The appeal must be taken within 60 days of the date of the ALJ’s unfavorable decision. You can read more about the Appeals Council review
Many people applying for Social Security disability are over the age of 50, and have worked hard for their entire adult life. But now, due to a medical condition, they can’t do their job any longer, and have been unable to find other work. Many of these workers are denied benefits when they apply for
The Appeals Council is now connected to Social Security’s electronic system. So now it is possible to check on the status of an Appeals Council request for review at the local Social Security office.
I checked on the cases I have at the Appeals Council from the Saco, Maine office this week. It took
Recently I had a prospective client come to my office after receiving an unfavorable decision from an administrative law judge. The claimant was unrepresented at the Social Security disability hearing.
I have now read the decision and reviewed the record, and the claim easily could have been granted at the hearing had there been a
