Your Social Security Earning Statement

The Social Security Administration (“SSA”) used to send out an annual statement about three months before everyone’s birthday explaining an individual’s entitlement to Social Security Retirement and/or Social Security Disability benefits. SSA stopped sending out these statements in 2010 due to budget cuts.  You can still access this information if you set up an online account with SSA at http://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/. It is a free service.

Make sure you are access the exact link that I mentioned above. There are some private commercial sites that have no affiliations with SSA that may try to charge you a fee for information that is already free. If the website does not end in .gov, it is not the real SSA website.  

I recently set up an account myself to see how user-friendly SSA’s online accounts were. I was quite impressed as it took me less than ten minutes to set up an account. Once I created my account, I had access to valuable information about my full retirement, early retirement, disability, and survivor’s benefits. I could also view my taxed Social Security earnings and taxed Medicare earnings to make sure they were accurate.

It is very important to periodically check your online SSA statement. Accounting errors do take place and you want to make sure that your Social Security earning record matches your own personal earnings records and W2s.

Please note that not everyone pays in the Federal Insurance Compensation Act (“FICA”). You must pay into FICA to be insured for Social Security Disability benefits. Some County and State employees have their own private pension plans through their employers and do not pay into Social Security Disability.   If you notice that there is no mention of disability benefits on your online earning statement, you may want to call the human resource department at your employer’s office, to verify if you paid into FICA or not. If you think there is an error on your earnings record contact SSA at 1-(800) 772-1213.

Got a question that you need answered? Please check out our website at www.westcoastdisability.com . We try to provide you with valuable information on our website that may help you navigate the Social Security Disability process. Also, feel free to shoot us an email at info@westcoastdisability.com or call us at (800) 459-3017.