Removing Retirement Penalty through Disability
Posted July 13, 2023 by Premier Disability Services, LLC®So you filed for disability benefits but the path to receiving benefits has led you to your 62nd birthday. Upon turning 62, you decided it would be best to file for early retirement. Now, you have to decide if continuing your disability case is worth it, even though you are receiving monthly payments already. After all, going in front of a judge can be intimidating! We’re here to tell you not to drop your disability case. In the end, your penalty for taking early retirement could be dropped and you could get possibly even get back-pay to when you became disabled!
Social Security’s website states that the penalties for taking early retirement can be up to 30% if taken right when you turn 62.[1] However, the award for disability benefits and early retirement benefits are calculated the same way.[2] The actual method for calculating your benefits involves several steps involving heavily complicated information, which we won’t get into here.[3] If you’re curious, Social Security has a number of different benefit calculators available on their website.[4]
The important thing to note, is that your early retirement benefit is essentially your potential disability benefit, but with a 30% reduction penalty. What does that mean? If you are found disabled prior to your 62nd birthday, you will receive your full retirement benefit amount! No reduction penalty! Not only that, but you could also be entitled to backpay even before you turned 62!
To find out more about how to file for disability and if you could possibly remove the penalty on your benefits, contact us at Premier Disability today!
By: Adam Sundling of Premier Disability Services, LLC®
[1] See https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc/early_late.html
[2] See 20 CFR 404.210
[3] 20 CFR 404.212 discusses how to compute the benefit if you become disabled or retire after 1984.
[4] https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/calculators/
