SSDI payments are based on your average monthly earnings in your adult lifetime - age 22 until the date you became disabled. Low years are averaged with high years. Lots of zero years yield a low monthly benefit.

You should have gotten at least one Social Security Statement which lists your lifetime earnings and an estimate for retirement or disability. It would be mailed to the address on your most recent W-2 or possibly 1040.

In order to be found disabled for SSDI, medical records have to establish that you are unable to physically or mentally perform any kind of substantial work on a sustained basis and that this medical condition has been or will be severe for 12 months or longer. If you are physically and mentally capable of doing a sit down, repetitive, light, unskilled job for 6-8 hours a day, you would be found not disabled. Doesn't matter if your community has none of these jobs - SSA looks at the national economy. Doesn't matter if the jobs available pay a lot less than the jobs you have had in the past.

The appeal process can be long and drawn out and may take several years and you still may not be approved. The other problem is that when you are out of the work force for awhile, you can run out of Social Security insured status.

Since you have filed a claim, the claims rep in your local office can provide you with a benefit estimate based on your current alleged onset date and can give you your date last insured. If you can work, you should work as long as possible even though it means less wages than before. You don't want SSA to find that your disability became severe AFTER your date last insured for disability.