Temporary Disability and Future Social Security (years, payments, benefit, insurance)

[RP2C]

Maybe someone here has been on "temporary disability" - if that is what it is called?

I can't seem to find an answer to this situation. If a person in their 40s, for example, is temporarily out of work on Disability (one or 2 years), then recovers and returns to work for the remainder of their work-life, how might that affect what is received upon retirement? I apologize if this is either an obvious or ridiculous question.

[MI-Roger]

Maybe Yes and maybe No. The missing years of work will eliminate periods for consideration in the highest years of wages, but lower wage early years get multiplied by a COLA adjustment so the missing years may or may not be in the highest.

[rjm1cc]

I do not know the answer but the rules say to use the 35 highest earnings years. I will assume the disability years will be close to zero for earnings and if the person has 35 other years then the disability will not affect the ss payments. If the disability years are counted it will lower the payment if the person would have been working.

[RP2C]

Thank you for the replies. It's not a clear-cut situation; there seem to be a lot of variables for each case. Thanks!

[Bureaucratic]

It's called "disability freeze". SSA will ignore years of disability in computing the retirement benefit so as not to have an adverse effect.

[germaine2626]

Originally Posted by Bureaucratic

It's called "disability freeze". SSA will ignore years of disability in computing the retirement benefit so as not to have an adverse effect.

I believe that happens with long term, permanent disability but I'm not sure about "short term" (one or two years) disability. It may also depend on the type of disability insurance, if any, that you receive.