Disability

[melia_allen]

My boyfriend (age 20) is currently working in a produce department in a wallmart and he has had scoliosis. One of his buddies is telling him that he should "hop on the disability train" he has asked me for my opinion. I honestly don't understand the North Dakota disability sistuation. If I did, I could give my insight on it. Do you think he should?

[ImCoolBeans]

If he's going for SSD he'll probably be denied since he's so young, and they'll try to encourage him to go back and work up enough credits so he can pay into the system, so that once he is around retirement age he'll be able to get a regular income from the federal government. If he's going for SSI the chances of being accepted are a little better, but there is a cap to SSI and if he makes over 2000 in a month at any given time, whether it be from a scratch off lottery ticket or a dead family member's inheritance money they will cut it off. When you get denied by social security for SSD there is a window where you can appeal the denial, where you'll need a lawyer (there are social security disability lawyers all over the place, my mom even works for one as a paralegal) and they will build a case for him to present in front of a judge at a hearing, and they will either make a bench decision or review the files and make one based off of that. Him being so young doesn't necessarily mean that it's out of reach, but just a little more difficult. I'm not a professional and I don't know anything other than some facts about the system, so I wouldn't be able to give you any type of advice or opinion, but that's just what I know about the system.

[melia_allen]

Thank you. That helped out a lot.