Ginnie,

As ELA mentioned, I believe your earlier posts discussed your potential eligibility for both programs. I'm going off memory of posts you made regarding this; I don't presume to know your whole work or financial history. I believe that you have commented that there were some issues with your work history......either not having enough recent quarters or having enough income due to the sporadic nature of your work as an artist. I thought that I heard you did qualify for some SSDI, but because the amount was low, based on your income you would also be eligible for some SSI. You said that there were issues with qualifying for the SSI because of your family trust that was set up to help you pay the taxes on your house. I thought you said you had trouble getting, or couldn't get Medicaid (which would go with SSI ) because of the family trust.

We've all been trying to define and explain the basic differences between the programs again in this thread. My explanation was this:

"SSDI involves having recent enough work quarters in and total disability. SSI is for low income people with total disability. SSI is the one with a $2000 asset cap for a single person."

If you have a specific question, we'll all try to answer it. I think you just have to trust us a little, that you simply reversed the acronyms. Another poster here and I were just discussing in pm's how frustrating it is to confuse something that we know that we know.....or used to know because of our pain and disability interfering with our memories.

If you are really confused about which program(s) you are on, as ELA recommended, check your paperwork. You can always call your local SSA office to ask them to explain based on your specifics. When you applied for either program, the SSA office would look up your work quarters, discuss if you were eligible for SSDI, start the application for you to prove total disability (necessary for either program), and discuss your financials to see if you would qualify for SSI.