At What Age Do You Go off Disability Benefits or Social Security Benefits?
Once someone qualifies for Social Security retirement benefits, monthly payments continue throughout the individual's lifetime. Social Security disability benefits can be terminated for several different reasons, one of them being the age of the beneficiary.
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Eligibility
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Eligibility for Social Security disability depends on your age and your work history. Up to age 24, you need to have six quarters between age eighteen and the time you became disabled. From age 24 to 30, you need to have worked half the time between age 21 and the time you became disabled. From age 31 through 42, you need at least 20 work credits. The minimum number of credits rises after age 42. Social Security explains its work requirements on their website under "How You Earn Credits." Social Security benefits will end if no longer meet the qualifications for disability and you have not begun receiving Social Security retirement benefits.
Early Retirement
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If you win a disability claim, Social Security will award you monthly benefits. The amount depends on your work history and the amount you've paid into the Social Security payroll tax. The benefits are paid monthly, just like retirement benefits, and the calculation is similar. At the age of 62, you may elect to draw early retirement benefits from Social Security. If you elect early retirement, your disability benefits will end.The monthly early retirement benefit you will be eligible for will be your full retirement benefit, reduced by 20 percent and will remain at that level, with cost of living adjustments, for the rest of your life.
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Retirement Age
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If you do not elect early retirement, technically, Social Security disability benefits will end when you reach Social Security's full retirement age, which varies with your birth year. If you were born between 1945 and 1956, your full retirement age is 66. If you were born in 1957, the full retirement age is 66 years and two months. The age rises two months with every birth year after that. Your retirement benefit is calculated from your work history and your payments into the Social Security system.
Disability and Retirement
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Even though Social Security considers your disability benefits to have ended once you reach full retirement age, in actual fact, you will continue receive the same benefit you had been receiving up to that point. The difference is that you no longer have to meet the Social Security requirements for disability. Your benefits will continue throughout your lifetime no matter what.
Mandatory Retirement
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If you are receiving early retirement benefits, you may apply for disability, but if you win, your benefit will be decreased by the amount of retirement you have already received. If you are denied for disability, your retirement benefits continue uninterrupted. It is not possible to draw both disability and retirement from Social Security. Annual increases are passed on by the Social Security administration to all beneficiaries, whether they are drawing disability or retirement.
Taxes
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Social Security benefits may be taxable depending on your gross income and your marital status. As of 2010, if you file as an individual, the IRS taxes up to 50 percent of your benefits if your gross earnings falls between $25,000 and $34,000 and up to 85 percent of your benefits above that level. If you are married filing a joint return, the 50 percent rate on benefits is levied when your gross income falls between $32,000 and $44,000 with the 85 percent rate applied above that level.
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