Thanks so much. It is true that you must have 40 quarters (10 years) of employment to qualify for SS retirement benefits. But I am confused because I have read that your actual retirement benefit is calculated upon your highest earnings per year for 35 years of employment. If you only have 30 years of paid employment, when you retire, then zero is used for 5 of the 35 years, thus reducing your benefit.

I am sure that my question above was not very clear. Let me try to put it another way. What if you worked for a total of 25 years (from age 20 to age 45) and were working again when you applied for SS retirement (at age 66)? You also were on SSDI for 15 years (from age 46 to age 61)and you did not work during this time. Then you were no longer on SSDI and worked for 5 years from age 62 to age 66. So you worked a total of 25 years. It would seem that either you SSDI payments should go towards the additional 10 years needed to make 35 years for the retirement income calculation. Alternatively, perhaps the retirement income calculation is based just upon the 25 years because you were on SSDI and so could not accumulate 35 years of paid employment. I have been unable to find the answer to how the lack of ten years of work would impact the SS retirement calculation for someone who has been on SSDI. I understand how it would be treated if someone was on SSDI at age 66.