Three Options for Disabled Adult Child Benefits

Q: What Social Security benefits may a disabled adult child be entitled to?

Universally, parents of disabled children fear dying as they worry who will become caretakers of their disabled child after they are gone. Parents often age quicker and become sick themselves trying to keep up with the caregiving demands of their special needs or physically disabled minor or adult children.  Add work responsibilities and sometimes caring for their own elderly parents and it’s easy to see how they may be at an increased risk of becoming disabled themselves from the stress and physical demands of their caretaking.

Arizona Social Security disability benefits attorneys can help disabled children and adults receive benefits to lighten the financial burden.

How can disabled adult children access benefits?

There are three ways disabled adult children may qualify for benefits:

• Qualifying for auxiliary or dependent benefits.  A disabled adult child of a parent who’s receiving Social Security benefits (or was insured for them at the time of their death) may be entitled to collect disability benefits based on their parent’s earnings record. The child must be over the age of 18 and have become disabled before the age of 22 and must be unmarried.
• Disabled adult children with their own work history may qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) based on their own prior work history. The younger you are at the time you become disabled and unable to work, the fewer work credits are required to qualify.
• Disabled adult children with no work history may qualify for Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) disability benefits.

Skilled disability benefits attorneys can assist adult disabled children and their parents with the initial application and the appeals process.

There’s a relatively new and promising service that may help parents worried about who will take care of their adult disabled children when they are no longer able to do so themselves or after they are gone.

Online roommate matching services, like Partners4Housing, pair non-disabled adults with disabled adults to create affordable housing solutions for both. The service is helpful due to the surging numbers of disabled adult children living with parent caretakers over the age of 60 and the long waiting lists for available group homes nationally. The shared expenses of such an arrangement are mutually beneficial and the pairings combat loneliness and isolation and may foster independence for the disabled adult child. Seattle-based Partners4Housing expanded to the Phoenix area in 2019. (This information is not an endorsement of services, but provided for informational purposes only.)

Contact Our Arizona Disability Benefits Attorney Today

If you need assistance with an initial application or appealing a denial of benefits, the disability benefits attorneys at Roeschke Law can help you. Contact us today for a free consultation.

From our offices in Tempe, Tucson, and Phoenix, we help disabled individuals and their families throughout Arizona get the benefits they deserve. It’s all we do.