Reply to Graduate students and paying into Social Security (disability related question)

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[quote=Anonymous]My adult child has worked for 2 years as a post bac and was paid a stipend, not a salary.
According to the IRS, you do not pay into FICA with a stipend, so the past two years didn't count towards earning any credits for SSDI or SS.

They are now going to enter a 5 year PhD program, also earning a stipend. They will be paying federal and state taxes on the stipend, but not paying into Social Security. Thus not earning any credits per year towards a Social Security benefit.

I am not terribly concerned about disability, but we have had family members become suddenly disabled at young ages, who have needed the financial support of SSDI and private disability insurance policies.

I know that if my adult child becomes disabled at, say, age 27, the rules to qualify for SSDI say they need to have worked at least half the time between ages 27 and age 21 in order to qualify for SSDI (which brings along the possibility of Medicare coverage if needed). This is the way our country's safety net works.

Am I being overly worried about this issue? I feel 7 years in your 20s is too long to go without paying into Social Security. I want to encourage them to earn at least $8000 each year in SS covered employment somehow (even though officially, grad school rules say no outside employment.) That's only about $200 each week and maybe could be earned by tutoring, or by working in the summer? I have no experience with grad school PHD life so I don't know if this is possible.

But I think it is important to keep access to what is our country's only safety net. There's such a thing as private disability insurance, but it replaces a salary, and a stipend isn't a salary. [/quote]

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