What’s the Difference?
Social Security disability or supplemental security income.
Disability standards for the programs are the same. The administration applies the same standard whether you have a mental or physical disability. The difference come in the financial part. Social security disability is an insurance program. If you are paying your car insurance and you have an accident as long as you are paying your premium you are covered. If you stop paying they will stop covering you. It is the same with with SSD. If you are paying your FICA taxes, you are insured for disability for a certain amount of time after you stop working. This is usually 5 years. Social security disability you have to be disabled but you have to have worked a certain amount of 5 out of 10 years.
Social security income I is a poverty based program. It comes from general taxes, where are your FICA taxes goes to your disability and retirement. Social security income is basically if you have never worked or don’t have quarters to qualify for disability. They look at your assets to see if you qualify. It makes a big difference if you quality for social security disability and social security income. If you win the Georgia lottery on social security disability you still are entitled to your disability. We see all the time where people did not pay their taxes and end up not being able to take the chances.