Hey, good day. It’s Brian Terry in here from the disability digest. And I am shooting this video for you with a picture of camel’s hump in the background to explain how your disability check is impacted by your work. One little known item called the wage freeze. Um, so this will help for those of you that are applying for disability. If you’re already on disability, it’ll help you understand how your check was some of the factors that derived your, check them out. Um, and I’m shooting it today with my Elmer FUD looking hat on because it was minus two when I left this morning to come up here. So, I figured it was appropriate. And the mountains in the background are sure a lot better than looking at me. Here we go. Um, the, what I want to talk about is called the wage freeze from social security.
When you’re working, you’re earning money and paying your FICA Tax, hopefully. And, that is increasing the amount of your social security disability check. The more you work, the more tax you pay, the higher your check amount will be. When you stop working and having zeros average into your annual earnings, or you work at a reduced rate that is going to reduce your social security disability check. And if you wait for over five years to apply, you won’t have a disability check.
There’s a feature called the wage freeze and sorry if the camera’s shaky, but it’s still quite chilly. How the wage for works is when you stop working, your wages are frozen. It shows that effectively your last day of work is a day that you applied, and stated that you could not work because of your conditions.
If you’re out of work and you don’t think you can return to work, the best thing to do to, keep your check as high as possible is to apply for your disability benefits. This will get your check amount locked in.