Social Security Disability vs. Retirement at Age 62: What's Better?

You're approaching 62, and you want to know, should you file for Social Security Disability because you can't work? Or should you just take regular Social Security Retirement because you're eligible as early as 62? Stay tuned. Let me talk about it. Okay, so let me break down this issue. Well, first, let me just make it easier for you. It's better to get disability. But it's harder to get disability. So in reality, you're probably more likely to just give up and file for retirement. That's the short version. Now, I'm going to explain it a little bit more, okay? So I'm Sylvia Gordon with the Medicare family, and you can take Social Security if you qualify. It means you worked at least 10 years, or you were married to someone that worked at least 10 years. You can take it as early as age 62, and you can take it as late as whenever, but if you want to, it's just a choice. If you want to take it at 62, you can take it at 62. However, if you've been watching me, you know that you will not get your full amount. You would get your full amount at your full retirement age. So it's going to be between 66 and 67. If you want to take it early, you want to take it in this scenario that I talk about at 62, your earliest possible chance to choose to take your retirement benefit, you're not going to get 100%. You're going to get more like 70%. Okay? So this is 62, and you're like, well, I don't want 70%. You can wait and take it later. Now, my scenario that I was talking about was somebody that says, I'm 61, 60, you aren't there. Should I wait until 62 and take retirement, or should I apply for disability? The reality is, which has been exacerbated by COVID, is that the system is very overloaded, and there's a lot of hurdles so that the great demand for disability, you're probably going to get turned down, and you're probably going to get turned down a couple of times. It's very hard to get social security disability, even if you're very deserving, just because of the amount of people that need it. There are certain things that are fast-tracked, which are late-stage cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, I think MS. There's certain things that are fast-tracked. But for most of you that will eventually get disability, it's going to take you on average two years. So if you're 62, and you want to apply for disability, this is where I told at the beginning, the shortcut is, you'll get more money. Because when you get disability, it's based off your entire work history, and you would get 100% of what you paid in, of how social security calculates it. Versus if you take retirement, you would get, they would base it off your entire work history, and you would get 100% at your full retirement age. So remember I said you want to take it at 62 before your full retirement age, so it's a reduced amount. So if you've got disability at 62, you'd get more than if you took early social security retirement. I know, it's like not even fun to talk about, I know you're not having fun listening to it. Social security has different trust funds. This one is the disability trust fund, this one is the retirement trust fund. I know you don't care about how the sausage is made, you just want to know which one will pay me more, disability will pay more. Which one is easier to get? Retirement's easier to get. So based on your illness, your situation, you might choose to try for disability, or you might try for disability and wait and give up, and then switch to retirement, or you might just forget about disability and go straight to retirement. If you take your retirement benefit, you will lock that benefit in for the rest of your life. If you take your disability benefit, again, you're going to lock that benefit in for the rest of your life. But Sylvia, right here you said this denotes your full retirement age, won't I get more money at my full retirement age? Surely? Hopefully? No. I already told you, when you take that disability benefit, you're going to lock that permanent amount in for the rest of your life, even though at this point it turns into retirement. So your disability will convert to a retirement benefit at your full retirement age, you don't get a bump in benefits. I know, I know. I hope this helped you, thanks for watching. If you like this video, you might really like this video, check it out, and we'd appreciate if you subscribed to our channel so you never miss a great video, we put out one every week. Check in the description below this video for a link to our cheat sheet on Social Security and Medicare, and you can also give us a comment if you have a specific question, always feel free to call us or email us at TheMedicareFamily.