Social Security Disability Increase 2018
The Social Security Administration (SSA) releases crucial updates once a year about the changes to Social Security benefits. These changes usually mean an increase in Social Security and Social Security Disability benefits. The Social Security disability increase 2018 is 2%. Here are the details of the increase.
Social Security Disability Increase 2018
The most important aspect of the increase is the COLA or Cost of Living Adjustment. As the cost of living rises, Federal benefits rates also rise. The Social Security Act links the yearly COLA increase to the changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers or CPI (W). When the CPI (W) index rises, it means the cost of living is going up. And therefore, the COLA helps to offset these increased costs. The announcement for the new COLA rates were made in October 2017 and were put into effect in January 2018 for Social Security recipients and December 2017 for SSI recipients. As per these changes, about 8 million Social Security Disability beneficiaries will get increased monthly payouts.
Other Changes in Social Security Benefits
Here is a list of the changes that have been made to Social Security Disability benefits for 2018:
- The maximum earnings that will be subject to Social Security Tax has increased from $127,200 in 2017 to $128,400 in 2018.
- The earning limit for people who are less than the full retirement age has increased from $16,920 per year (or $1,410 per month) to $17,040 per year (or $1,420 per month).
- The earning limit for people who will reach full retirement age has increased from $44,880 per year (or $3,740 per month) to $45,360 per year (or $3,780 per month).
- Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) thresholds have also increased. SGA is a term employed by the SSA to define disability. If a person is able to make more than a certain sum of money per month, then he or she would not be considered disabled according to the SSA definition.
- SGA for non-blind disabled people has gone up from $1,170 a month to $1,180 a month.
- SGA for blind people has gone up from $1,950 a month to $1,970 a month.
- For those in their trial work period, the wage limit has increased to $850 a month from the previous amount of $840 a month.
- The supplemental Security Income Federal Payment Amounts (this is the payout per month) for 2018 has increased to $750 from $735 a month for individuals and from $1,103 to $1,125 a month for couples.
- SSI Resource Limits have stayed the same. Since the SSI eligibility criteria are based how badly off a person is financially, there is a limit to the amount of resources that a person can have to qualify for the program. Right now, single people cannot have resources worth more than $2,000 and couples $3,000.
These are just the highlights of what the Social Security disability increase 2018 looks like. The SSA Fact Sheet give more information about the changes that have taken place.
