Originally Posted by kane

There are two parts of social security. Straight social security is for people who are retired. SSA (sometimes also called SSD or SSI) is a disability payout. It covers those who are younger than retirement age and are disabled to the point where they cannot work. This is the hard one to get because there are a lot of scammers who will make claims like "crippling migraines all day long" or "social anxiety" and say these thing make it so they can't work and they can draw SSI and get food stamps, section 8 housing and medicare.

SSI can be drawn for short term disabilities as well. My uncle who is 57 had to have a knee replacement surgery. Between his job and regular health insurance they only covered about 60 days of disability and the doctor told him it would be at least 5-6 months until he was able to go back to work full time (he is a carpenter) so he drew SSI for about 3 months.