If you are receiving SSI payments you know that your monthly check does not go very far. In 2022, the maximum an individual can receive from SSI is $841 per month. Obviously $841 per month does not go very far.

Do you have the option to “upgrade” to SSDI disability benefits?

Unfortunately the answer to this question is most likely “no.”

SSDI is only available if you have sufficient earnings credits based on past work you have done and taxes paid into the Social Security system. If you applied for and were awarded SSI in the past, that means that you met SSA’s definition of “disability” but that you did not have enough credits for SSDI.

Both SSI and SSDI use the same definition of disability – that being a person is disabled if he/she can no longer perform substantial gainful activity due to a medically determinable condition that has lasted or is expected to last 12 consecutive months or result in death.

If you did not have enough credits for SSDI last year, two years ago, five years ago or whenever you were awarded SSI, you won’t have enough credits now. If you have been working while receiving SSI, you would likely be in “overpay” status. As a practical matter if you are earning enough to generate earnings credits for SSDI your SSI should have been reduced to zero (see https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-income-ussi.htm for examples of these calculations.  Click here to learn more about SSA earnings credits.

You don’t generate earnings credits from receiving SSI. Further, SSDI is not an “upgrade” from SSI since both programs use the same definition of disability.

The only way you could become eligible for SSDI would be to use someone else’s earnings record. For example if your spouse worked and was fully insured for SSDI but died, you could file a widow/widower’s benefit claim at age 50.

A younger SSI recipient could also potentially file for SSDI as an adult disabled child. You can learn more about the adult disabled child program here.

Absent these situations, however, you cannot transform SSI into SSDI.