Social Security Disability Benefits for Your Child

Did you know that minors can qualify for Social Security Disability payments? If approved, parents/guardians can receive payments to help support and raise their disabled children. Minor children are typically only eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

For your child to qualify for SSI Benefits, we need to prove two things to The Social Security Administration:

1. That they are medically disabled, and
2. That you have financial need

Proving Your Child is Medically Disabled 

The guidelines to prove disability are different for children (compared to adults), and are based on benchmarks for 6 Functional Domains. These domains define six broad skill categories necessary for everyday life. These domains are: 

1. Acquiring and using information 
   • This domain considers a child’s ability to learn and apply information. 
2. Attending and completing tasks 
   • This domain considers a child’s ability to concentrate and finish tasks. 
3. Interacting and relating to others 
   • This domain considers a child’s ability to socialize with others and sustain emotional connection. 
4. Moving about and manipulating objects
   • This domain considers a child’s physical ability to do tasks and their motor skills.  
5. Caring for yourself 
   • This domain considers a child’s ability to manage stress and remember to do self-care tasks, NOT their physical ability to care for themselves.
6. Health and physical well-being 
   • This domain considers aspects that don’t fall into any other domain. This can include the cumulative effect of medical conditions, medication side effects, and the effect treatment has on the child’s physical and mental health. 

Determining limitations in these domains is done mostly using evidence from medical records and school documentation (such as IEP’s and statements from the child’s teachers). Information from those documents is then compared to average developmental milestones of children around their age (as determined by the Social Security Administration).

If a child shows “marked” limitations in two domains or “extreme” limitations in one domain, then Social Security will consider them disabled. “Marked” limitations are limitations that are more than moderate but less than extreme. “Extreme” limitations are the worst limitations that seriously interfere with a child’s ability to independently initiate, sustain, and complete age-appropriate activities. 

For more information about these functional domains and summaries of average developmental milestones for these functional domains in each age group, please view our handouts:

Functional domains for newborns

Functional domains for toddlers (1-2 years old)

Functional domains for preschoolers (3-5 years old)

Functional domains for schoolkids (6-11 years old)

Functional domains for adolescents (12-17 years old)

Proving Financial Need

Once Social Security has determined that your child is medically disabled, you will have to complete a “PERC” (Pre-Effectuation Review Contact) Interview. In this interview, a Social Security caseworker will ask questions about your assets and income in a process they call “deeming”, in order to determine how much of your income and assets to be available to your child. If that amount is too high, Social Security will decide that you do not have financial need and are thus ineligible for benefits. If that amount is above a certain threshold, Social Security will decide that you qualify for some assistance but not the full amount. These thresholds vary based on family size, type of income, and the number of parents/legal guardians. 

If you only have one disabled child in your household, you can easily estimate these thresholds for benefit reduction or ceased eligibility using the chart below. These thresholds are updated annually. 

The chart below is organized by different categories: 

• Type of Income 
  • Earned Income – wages from employment and/or net earnings from self-employment 
  • Unearned Income – includes all income not earned as a result of work. These include Social Security benefits, pensions, unemployment benefits, cash assistance from friends, etc. 
  • Note: Some types of income are not deemed by Social Security as available to your child. These include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, foster care payments for a non-disabled child, and income used to pay court-ordered child support. 
• 1 or 2 parent household
• Number of Ineligible Children 
  • These are children you are responsible for in addition to your disabled child. 

*Infographic generated using information from 2025 SSI Deeming Chart | NOSSCR 

* Please note that everyone’s situation is unique, so this table should only be used to estimate eligibility. 

This chart can be tricky to read. To help, here are a couple examples using the 2025 thresholds: 

• If you have one disabled child and one non-disabled child in a two-parent household, you qualify for benefits if your household make less than $5,443/month, but your benefits could be reduced starting at $3,509/month. 
• If you have one disabled child with no other children in a one-parent household, you qualify for benefits if you make less than $3,993/month, but your benefits could be reduced starting at $2,059/month.  

If you believe your child may qualify for Social Security Disability benefits, please reach out! We are available by phone at 888-473-1289 or you can message us online.

Sources:

2025 SSI Deeming Chart | NOSSCR

SSI Spotlight on Deeming Parental Income and Resources | Supplemental Security Income (SSI) | SSA

20 C.F.R. 416.926a(a-l) & Federal Register Vol. 74, No. 30, page 7521-7524