Do
you want to receive a financial support after your retirement, when there will
be no regular income source? Or are any of your physical/mental disabilities are
limiting your potential to do regular jobs? Then it is time for you to know
about the social security benefits.
Not
only for the cases mentioned above, the social security system has been
offering support for a range of people facing financial hardship. Beneficiaries
include-
- Retired persons
- Spouse and children of someone who dies
- Disabled persons
- Veterans
- Unemployed etc.
A
study shows that most of the social security beneficiaries are the retired
people, followed by disability beneficiaries and surviving spouses and
children. Thus a short overview of all these three categories are presented
below-
Retirement benefits:
To be
able to receive retirement benefits, you should have a certain amount of
credits earned by yourself. The credit calculation depends on two things-
- How long did you work?
- How much you earned?
Based
on these two questions, your credits are calculated. You will be needing 40
credits in total to become eligible for the retirement benefits.
A
person can start receiving his/her retirement benefits as soon as he/she is 62
years of age. However, in this case he/she would not able to receive the full
benefits, rather will receive a reduced version. In order to receive the full
retirement benefits, one should start receiving it from his full retirement
year. Here, the full retirement year is determined based on the year which he/she
was born.
Disability benefits:
Disability
benefits are designed to support people whose working ability is largely
reduced due to some physical or mental conditions. For a certain period of time
(12 months continuously to be exact) if that physical or mental illness makes
you incapable of doing jobs, you may claim your social security disability
benefits.
It is
to be noted that the eligibility for receiving social security disability
benefits doesn't depend on an individual’s income. A person with a higher
income may also become eligible for receiving the disability benefits if he/she
has legitimate disability causes.
Spousal benefits:
As a
spouse- one can also get social security benefits. The moment your better half
files for his/her own benefit, you will be eligible for this right away. In
case of spousal benefit, one may be eligible even if he/she has not been worked
under social security.
The
calculation of social security spousal benefit is very complex and could be
different in amount under different circumstances. The amount may vary
depending on the following factors-
- When are you claiming for the benefits?
- Are you eligible for your own benefit etc.?
A
person can also receive benefits if his/her spouse is not alive. In this case
the spousal benefit is generally called the survivors benefit and provides
financial support for a person whose spouse has already passed away.
One
should apply in order to receive the benefit appropriate for his/her. Also, he/she
has to prove his eligibility with proper documentation. For more information on
this and the application procedure you may visit www.ssa.gov
Comments
Post a Comment