[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Many people who apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits are unsure of how much compensation they would receive should their application be approved.\u00a0 Unlike personal injury claims or work injury benefits, the severity of an injury does not play a role in determining SSDI benefits.\u00a0 SSDI benefits are determined instead by calculating applicants’ average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) and running that amount through a predetermined mathematical formula.\u00a0 Benefits are based solely on work and salary history.<\/p>\n
Calculating AIME is a bit intensive and is typically done by the Social Security Administration (SSA).\u00a0 For the year you turn 21 years old and every year after, the income on which you paid Social Security taxes is multiplied by a number called an indexing factor and averaged.\u00a0 For example, let’s say someone earned $40,000 in 2010 and 2011.\u00a0 In 2020, the income that person received in 2010 would be multiplied by 1.2512841 and the income earned in 2011 would be multiplied by 1.2132683.\u00a0 For the purpose of calculating AIME, 2010 income is now considered $50,051 and 2011 income is now considered $48,531.\u00a0 The AIME for just these two years would be $49,291.\u00a0 To calculate a full AIME, one would need to make this calculation for every year in which you’ve earned income.<\/p>\n
Once an applicant’s AIME has been calculated, determining benefits become much easier.\u00a0 SSA follows a formula to determine an SSDI benefit amount.\u00a0 In 2020 the formula is:\u00a0 90 percent of AIME up to $960 plus 32 percent of AIME over $960 and under $5,785 plus 15 percent of AIME over $5,785.\u00a0 The values of $960 and $5,785 in the formula are called ‘bend points’ and change every year.\u00a0 So if a 2020 SSDI applicant’s AIME is $1500, the benefit amount would be $864.00 + $172.80 + $0, or $1,036.80.\u00a0 For an AIME of $7000, the benefit amount would be $864.00 + $1,544.00 + $182.25, or $2,590.25.\u00a0 The average SSDI benefit in 2020 is expected to be $1,258.\u00a0 SSDI benefits are also subject to a maximum amount.<\/p>\n
Are you curious about your expected SSDI benefit level?\u00a0 Anyone aged 18 and up who has an email address, Social Security number, U.S. mailing address can create an account with the SSA<\/a> to view their work history and see what their estimated SSDI benefit level would be.\u00a0 The SSA website itself disclaims that it cannot provide your actual benefit amount until you actually apply, but the estimated benefit level should provide a good idea of what you would receive after a successful SSDI application.<\/p>\n The amount of SSDI benefits an injured worker is expected to receive doesn’t do very much if the worker does not submit an SSDI application that is approved by the government.\u00a0 The Law Offices of Scott Warmuth helps people applying for SSDI benefits and appealing SSDI application denials.\u00a0 For a free consultation with a Social Security Disability attorney<\/a>, call our offices today at 888-517-9888.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlike personal injury claims or work injury benefits, the severity of an injury does not play a role in determining SSDI benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workers-compensation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law888.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}