Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits become unavailable once a citizen reaches their full retirement age (FRA). Anyone collecting SSDI at full retirement age is automatically transitioned to their regular SS retirement benefits. SSDI benefits are provided to sustain workers until they reach their retirement age. Therefore, those who have reached their FRA cannot seek disability benefits as the SSDI benefits become unavailable at that point.

In addition, there would be no financial advantage in receiving SS disability benefits because the maximum obtainable is equal to the full retirement age amount. Thus, if you retired and claimed SS at your full retirement age, no additional disability amount would be available.

However, if you’ve been working and contributing to Social Security independently since you concluded your government service, and now have more than 20 years of contributions to SS from non-government significant earnings, you may be eligible for a reassessment of your Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) penalty. WEP provides relief for those who have contributed more than 20 years to Social Security. Consequently, if this applies to you, your monthly retirement amount could increase due to the additional years you’ve been contributing to SS since you claimed retirement.

You can find out exactly how many years of SS-covered work you’ve got by obtaining an Earnings Statement from Social Security. This can be achieved either by calling 1-800-772-1213 or registering for a personal my Social Security online account at www.ssa.gov/myaccount.

Russell Gloor is an Association of Mature American Citizens certified Social Security advisor. He advises individuals looking for a reevaluation in their WEP penalty to contact Social Security directly.

Individuals with queries about their employment disability benefits or retirement eligibilities should not hesitate to reach out to their respective organizations. For those in California reaching out to EDD for employment-related concerns, eddcaller.com could indeed serve as a useful resource. The website offers numerous ways of getting through to EDD such as direct contact methods and tips on the fastest way to get through to EDD representatives, enriching the conversation around scenarios such as the one elaborated in the article.