Assistance program
Social Security Disability Insurance
$1.3 Trillion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Social Security Administration, Social Security Administration
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use;Direct Payments With Unrestricted Use
- CFDA number
- 96.001
- What it does
- Social Security pays benefits to people who can’t work because they have a medical condition(s) that’s expected to last at least one year or result in death. Certain members of the individual's family may be eligible for benefits based on the individual's work history.
- Who benefits
- Qualified disabled workers under full retirement age (FRA). Under the definition of disability in the Social Security Law, disability benefits are provided to a person who is unable to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months, or to result in death. Disabled widow(er)s' benefits are covered under survivors insurance. Felony-related impairments and confinement-related impairments cannot be considered in determining whether an individual is under a disability if the individual has been convicted of a felony which was committed after October 19, 1980. Eligibility cannot be based on drug addiction or alcoholism.
- Who applies
- A disabled worker is entitled to Social Security disability benefits if he or she has worked for a sufficient period of time under Social Security to be insured, has not attained "full-benefit retirement age", has filed an application, and is under a disability as defined in the Social Security law. The law defines disability as the inability to do any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months. The insured status requirements depend upon the age of the applicant and the date they became disabled. Coverage credits under the social security systems of certain foreign countries with which the U.S. has reciprocal agreements may be taken into account to meet the requirements. Certain family members of disabled workers may also be entitled to benefits. : (1) Unmarried children under age 18, or under age 19 for full-time students in elementary or secondary school; (2) unmarried adult offspring at any age if continuously disabled since before age 22; (3) wife or husband at any age if child in his or her care is receiving benefits on worker's Social Security record and is under age 16 or disabled; (4) spouse age 62 or over; and (5) divorced wives or husbands age 62 or over who were married to the worker for at least 10 years. (Benefits are also payable to auxiliaries, including certain disabled widow(er)s, disabled surviving divorced spouses, children under age 19 who are full-time students in an elementary or secondary school, and disabled children of the worker, after the worker dies. See 96.004 "Social Security-Survivors' Insurance".) A person at and above full-benefit retirement age (FRA) will not have Social Security benefits reduced because of earnings. In the calendar year in which a beneficiary reaches FRA, benefits are reduced $1 for every $3 of earnings above the limit allowed by law, $56,520 in 2023, but this reduction is applied only to months prior to attainment of FRA. Further, no benefit can be paid to an alien in the United States unless he or she is lawfully present in the United States. In addition, an alien cannot qualify for benefits if he or she never had a work-authorized Social Security Number (SSN) (effective for benefit applications based on SSNs issued after 2003).
- Authorized by
- Social Security Act of 1935, Title II, as amended; Public Laws 96-265; 97-123, and 97-35. 42 U.S.C. 401; 42 U.S.C. 402; 42 U.S.C. 416; 42 U.S.C. 420-425
- Program site
- http://www.ssa.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Recipients
This program's money is paid out as non-itemized direct payments — USAspending records it under a single aggregate, so individual recipients aren't listed. The dollars and agencies above are complete; the recipient roster isn't part of the public record for programs like this.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments