For multiple reasons, adjusting to disability can be very difficult. This is why the government provides Social Security Disability benefits in the first place, to try and make this life transition a little bit easier.
There are multiple ways that you can qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance, but depending on your disability you may find it beneficial to apply for the “disability freeze.” According to the Social Security Administration, a disability freeze may apply if you are still currently working but anticipate that your disability will slowly start to negatively impact your income before you qualify for benefits.
What does a disability freeze do?
A disability freeze is one way to ensure that you maximize your benefits. For certain disabilities, like blindness, it is possible that you will retain your ability to work for many years but that your disability will slowly cut into the amount of money that you make.
Not only is this an extremely frustrating process in general, failure to invoke a disability freeze may eventually hurt you in the future by limiting your benefits.
Why would this limit my benefits?
Since the amount of money you get from the government for your disability benefits depends on how much money you made during your career, a slow loss of income will negatively impact the benefits when you apply for them.
However, the government recognizes that not offering a “freeze” would encourage persons suffering from disabilities to apply for benefits prior to actually being unable to work. A disability freeze will ensure that the government only counts your income at its highest level.