Auxiliary Benefits

There are various types of additional, or auxiliary benefits that might be available when you become entitled to receive Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits. For example, if you are entitled to SSD benefits, then you are also entitled to receive benefits for your minor children, which is typically about half your SSD benefit. 

Frequently, the Social Security office will not always contact a claimant about children’s benefits after learning that a claimant will be receiving SSD benefits. Children’s benefits are not provided automatically; the claimant must file an application for them. If filed timely, the children’s benefits will start when the SSD benefits start. If an application for children’s benefits is not filed promptly, they may have a later start date than the SSD benefits. 

I represent a claimant who received SSD benefits starting in March 2008, but whose children’s benefits did not start until 2013. I was retained to see if it were possible to obtain additional children’s benefits. 

The claimant never received a letter from Social Security advising him to file an application for children’s benefits when he was approved for SSD benefits, and he had proof that he had problems receiving mail at that time. Moreover, the claimant testified that he went to the local Social Security office shortly after securing SSD benefits, he was specifically told that there were no other benefits available. 

In 2014, the claimant learned that he should have been receiving children’s benefits, and he filed an application for them. The application was approved. However, the general rule is that children’s benefits, like SSD benefits, can only be paid 12 months prior to the application’s filing. Therefore, the claimant only received children’s benefits as of 2013. The claimant appealed, but an ALJ denied the request for an earlier onset. 

I filed an appeal that argued because the claimant had been misinformed about his entitlement to children’s benefits, he was entitled to a March 2008 onset. The Appeals Council reversed the ALJ’s decision, and ordered a new hearing, to address the claimant’s misinformation argument. Unfortunately, this is a situation that could have been avoided if the claimant had retained an attorney experienced in Social Security. While an attorney is never required, one is usually advisable.