How Much Money Do You Get When You Qualify for Disability in Florida?

One of the most frequently-asked (and important) questions many Floridians have about their disability benefits claim is “how much money will I get when I qualify for disability in Florida?”

This is an important piece of information to know when planning out your household budget. After all, if you’re not sure how much you’ll get in disability benefits, how can you effectively plan ahead?

What Affects My Payment Amount?

The problem with trying to determine what your benefit will be is that there are a lot of variables that can affect how much money you’ll get in disability benefits, including:

• Whether you qualified for benefits under Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplement Security Income (SSI);
• Certain additional income sources you may have;
• Your living situation;
• Your work history;
• The number of dependents you have;
• Your average indexed monthly earnings for the years you worked;
• Whether or not you’re owed any back pay (usually only affects first year of payments); and
• The Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for the current year.

This is a lot of variables to take into account when estimating how much your disability benefit payment is going to be.

What’s the Maximum Benefit I Can Get?

Assuming you have a strong work history and no other sources of income that the Social Security Administration (SSA) will deduct your payment for, the maximum possible Social Security benefit you can receive in 2017 is $2,687/mo. This is based on the SSA’s Fact Sheet covering the 2017 COLA changes.

However, according to that same fact sheet, the actual average estimated monthly payable benefit for all disabled workers is closer to $1,171—less than half the maximum payment. This number could be so much smaller because it may include all forms of disability benefits, including single workers on SSI who average about $735/mo. in payments.

So, it's important to know that while $2,687/mo. is the MOST you could get, it's likely that your monthly benefit will be lower than this amount.

How Can I Find Out What My Disability Benefit Will Be?

The best way to quickly determine what your disability benefit will be is to either:

1. Log into ssa.gov/myaccount and review your Social Security Statement online—this is if you already have an account registered with SSA.gov.
   OR:
2. Use one of the SSA’s online calculators to plug in your information and get an estimate.

These resources can be useful for getting a good idea of how much income you’ll be able to expect out of your disability payments.

We here at Disability Experts of Florida hope that you found this blog and the resources highlighted within useful. If you need more help with your disability application in Florida, be sure to reach out to an experienced disability advocate!