How Does Your Age Count in Your Social Security Disability Claim?
When Social Security plugs your age into its formula for deciding whether to award you disability benefits, it assigns different weights to different age ranges.
The older you are—especially if you’re over 50—the more Social Security considers your age to make a difference in whether you could work despite your health problems. And being unable to work is the key requirement for SSDI benefits.
These are the age categories Social Security uses:
- “Younger Person,” Age 18–49
- “Closely Approaching Advanced Age,” Age 50–54
- “Person of Advanced Age,” Age 55–60
- “Closely Approaching Retirement Age, “Age 60 and up
For a “younger person,” Social Security judges that your age doesn’t stop you from finding new kinds of work if your health rules out your past work. You’re more likely to be denied benefits.
In the 45–49 range, however, Social Security recognizes that your ability to adjust to other work is becoming more limited.
In the “closely approaching advanced age” group, starting at 50, age starts to become a significant factor to Social Security, along with your severe health impairments and limitations in your work experience.
For “advanced age” and “approaching retirement,” your age is now a major factor in the decision of whether there’s any work out there that you could do even with your medical conditions. You probably have fewer options, so you’re more likely to win benefits.
You need to know this: You paid into this program with Social Security taxes when you worked, so you’ve earned the right to claim benefits.
This is not a handout. There’s no shame in claiming what you deserve. You worked hard, and now face debilitating medical issues through no fault of your own.
At The Clarkson Firm, we’re here to listen and help—not to judge. Talk to us and find out more. Your first conversation with our Alabama disability lawyer team is absolutely free.
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Putting the SSDI Age Requirements & SSDI Medical Requirements Together
Next, Social Security will insert your age group into the “grid.” Officially, Social Security doesn’t call it a grid, though you might hear people using that word. Social Security’s name for this is the “medical-vocational guidelines.”
But they do have a chart where your age category goes in one column, and other details about your circumstances go in other columns. In the last column, they conclude that you either have a disability that qualifies for benefits, or you don’t.
These are the types of information they feed into the chart:
- Your age category
- Your education background
- Your work experience
- Skills that transfer to different jobs
- Your day-to-day task ability
- Whether you can perform sedentary, light, medium, or heavy work
Education categories include “limited,” “marginal,” “high school graduate” and “high school graduate or more.”
Work experience falls into categories such as “unskilled,” “semi-skilled” and “skilled.” And they consider whether the skills you have are a type you could use in different jobs (transferable), or if they aren’t transferable.
Your day-to-day task ability is something that Social Security calls your “residual functional capacity,” or RFC. Your RFC is a measure including how well you can stand, walk, lift, carry things, focus on tasks and more.
Using your RFC, Social Security then decides how strenuous of a job it thinks you can handle, from sedentary to heavy. They have definitions for all of these levels.
People at more senior ages who are deemed limited to sedentary or light work are more likely to win disability benefits.
The higher your age, the easier it is to satisfy these rules. But you can see how this system is a complicated way to get at an answer about whether you can work or not.
Put an experienced Alabama disability attorney on your case. Your attorney can present your information in a way that satisfies Social Security’s confusing SSDI age requirements. And you pay no attorney fee until you win benefits.
After years of working hard, being dedicated, supporting your family, and being productive—and in the face of major health setbacks—it’s time for you to get the support you need to lead a decent life.
Contact Us Today! »Help for Every Step of Getting Disability Benefits
Are you trying to figure out if you should even try getting disability benefits? Do you need to put in an application? Have you already applied, but been turned down? Your Alabama Social Security Disability lawyer can step in at any point and help you.
How Does Social Security Disability Work? Get Answers.
Social Security Disability is a huge, complicated program that often doesn’t seem like it cares much about you and your needs. Can’t get answers to your questions? Your disability attorney from The Clarkson Firm is the one who truly cares and guides you. Talk to us.
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