good news

We heard today that John was approved for Social Security disability. He applied, was turned down, we filed an appeal ourselves, and now he is approved. That is within six months of when he applied. It is a little more than 6 months from his date of disability (last May) but that is because we waited several months before applying. Someone told us to wait until his disability was approved from his state goverment job, which turned out to be bad advice (particularly because he was 62 years old and thus eligible for early retirement).

The people we have dealt with at Social Security have been wonderful. Today, the person who called explained to us that because we currently have two children drawing benefits, we are getting more from retirement than we would get from disability. When our son is finished high school in May then the total family disability benefit will be higher than the retirement benefit. So they will send us papers for John to sign to stay on retirement until June and then change over to the disability that has already been approved. That then gives him about $300 a month extra for the rest of his life (he is currently getting just over $1,000 a month so that is a significant increase).