I received a question from one of my blog readers asking about date calculations.   I wish I could tell you that understanding Social Security’s date calculations and acronyms was easy but I can’ t say that.  I will try to offer some explanation about this confusing area.

i got an amended date signed by the judge but the  social ser, office only went back to 2005 when i had the hearing  and not the amended date that i was told they would go too. can you help me undersatnd this date stuff.
–Sandra

My reponse: Sandra, for sake of this blog post, I am going to talk mainly about SSDI benefits.  I’ll touch on SSI but I’ll make SSI date calculations the subject of a later post.

So that everyone is on the same page, when I speak about SSDI, I am talking about Title II disability – the kind of disability that you receive if you have worked and paid money into the system.  In order to qualify for SSDI, you have to be “insured” and have enough credits.  I am going to assume that Sandra has enough credits and that there is no issue regarding her eligibility for SSDI.

When you apply for SSDI, you will be asked about the “onset date” for your disability.  Since you are contending that you no longer have the capacity to work, I usually find that a good onset date is the day that you left your last full time job.   You can voluntarily change your onset date – sometimes I discover that my client chose a date that was many months after he was able to work and I amend the onset date to an earlier date.   In other cases, I find that my client used an onset date that was two or three years before she stopped working – in that case I might recommend that we amend the onset date forward as it is hard to argue that my client is disabled when she was still working full time. Continue reading →