Earnings Record

Your earnings record is a record of all earnings you’ve received throughout your work history that the Social Security Administration (SSA) keeps for the purpose of determining your eligibility for Social Security Disability benefits and the amount of benefits you’d be eligible to receive if you became disabled. The Social Security Administration should send you a copy of your earnings record around your birthday each year. If you haven’t gotten your earnings record, you can get one from the Social Security Administration for a little cost. The majority of financial gurus agree that you should analyze your earnings history once a year. Because your earnings record is used to calculate how many credits you’ve earned for Social Security Disability Insurance, you’ll want to double-check that you’ve been given full credit for all of your work hours.

If you have retained your tax records, verifying your earnings record is simple and takes little effort. Even if you haven’t maintained track of these crucial documents, you should be able to verify that the data on your earnings record is at least reasonably correct.

The majority of the time, your earnings history will be accurate. The Social Security Disability system, like a lot of other systems, makes mistakes from time to time. Employers not turning in your information (or not turning it in correctly), a name change (usually due to marriage or divorce) that was not reported, causing income to be reported incorrectly, and mess ups in recording your Social Security number on work or tax forms are all common reasons for discrepancies in earnings records. Whatever the cause of any inaccuracies, you’ll want to make sure they’re fixed so your Social Security Disability benefits are properly documented.

If you believe your earnings record is incorrect, gather the best documentation you can about what your earnings records should look like (W-2s, pay stubs, tax returns, or salary records are all good possibilities) and call your local Social Security Administration Field Office. The sooner you amend your earnings record, the sooner you’ll be credited with the correct number of Social Security Disability quarters.