With Social Securty, the devil is always in the details

I was researching something else a couple of days ago when I came across POMS (Social Security Program Operations Manual) listing DI 23505.010—“Re-entitlement to Childhood Disability Benefits”.  Intrigued, I cross-referenced that with 20 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) 404.351 “Who may be re-entitled to child’s benefits”.  The references are there for any who, like I, am a policy-manual nerd.  I will get into those bedeviled details after a quick refresher.

Childhood Disability Benefits or “CDB”, also known as “Disabled Adult Child” or “DAC” benefits,  are cash benefits, payable on a parent’s Social Security work record to a child over the age of 18.  In order to be eligible for CDB, the person with a disability must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Have a medically determinable condition(s) that meet the adult definition of “disability”.  This definition requires that the condition(s) be serious enough to prevent the person from performing “Substantial Gainful Activity,” defined as activity that generates $1,620/month or more in gross income (2025).  The condition(s) must be expected to last at least one year.

2. Have a disability with an onset date that occurred before the person turned 22 years of age.  There is one infrequently used exception to this when an adult child receiving CDB has a disability that ceases but then again becomes disabled within a certain period of time.

3. Be the child (biological, adopted, grand-, or adopted-grand-, or eligible as such under state-intestacy laws).  The “grandchild as child”, situation can only apply if the biological or adoptive parents of the applicant are deceased or disabled.

4. Be a dependent of the parent on whose work record they are claiming.  Note that dependency is deemed (assumed) in most cases except in certain stepparent/stepchild relationships, grandparent/grandchild relationships, and certain unusual adoptive parent/child relationships.

5. Be unmarried.

6. Have a parent who has filed for Social Security Disability or Retirement benefits or who is deceased.

Childhood Disability Benefits can begin as early as age 18, the point at which general minor child’s benefits would end.  However, most youth with disabilities do not qualify for CDB until later because of that last criterion in which the parent must be themselves drawing Social Security or else deceased.  Thus, many youths are determined to be disabled at age 18 and then begin to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or even Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) based on their own work record, but they must wait until the parent files to be eligible for CDB.  In such cases, if, prior to becoming eligible for CDB, the adult child is determined by the Social Security Administration to be no longer “disabled”, because s/he has demonstrated the capacity for Substantial Gainful Activity level employment over a period of time.  Therefore, the adult child cannot regain CDB eligibility even if her/his earned income were to drop again below the SGA threshold.

The SSA uses a different approach when an adult child with a disability first becomes eligible for CDB and then engages in SGA.  In this case, the person will still cease to be entitled to CDB once s/he has engaged in SGA for a period of time but will become re-entitled if/when her/his earned income again drops below the SGA threshold for the current year.  The fact that re-entitlement for CDB is possible when CDB payments have already begun but also impossible if those payments were only to begin in the future represents a discrepancy in the evaluation of capacity for Substantial Gainful Activity.  But as in many bureaucratic programs, “rule is rules” and the devil is always in the details.