How do you apply for disability benefits in Alabama?

Both applications go to the Social Security Administration, not to the department that handles an Alabama unemployment claim, and each program is decided on its own test. Alabama's own contribution is vocational rehabilitation: employment and training services aimed at getting you back to work.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

SSDI, which Social Security also calls Disability, pays a monthly amount to people who have a disability that stops or limits their ability to work. Social Security looks for a disability or blindness, and for enough work history behind it. What you get may include a monthly payment and Medicare, and the payment amount is based on the work history you built before the disability began.

Apply for Social Security Disability Insurance opens Social Security's own Disability page, which carries both the how-to-apply steps and a check on whether you might be eligible.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

SSI pays a monthly amount to people with disabilities and to older adults who have little or no income or resources. Adults and children may be eligible if they have little or no income, little or no resources, and a disability, blindness, or are age 65 or older.

The tests pull apart here. SSDI turns on the work history behind you; SSI turns on the income and the resources you have now.

Apply for Supplemental Security Income starts on Social Security's page for it.

Applying without doing it online

Neither program has to be claimed on a computer. Call Social Security on 1-800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and say you want to set up an appointment to apply. They book it and decide whether it happens by phone or in person. The line is answered in English, Spanish, and other languages, and the TTY number is 1-800-325-0778 for anyone deaf or hard of hearing.

After an application goes in, Social Security reviews your work history and medical records. If you meet its non-medical rules, it sends your case to a Disability Examiner at Alabama's own Disability Determination Service, who may ask for more forms or arrange an examination.

If sickness or injury stops you working while you claim unemployment

Alabama pays unemployment benefits only to a claimant who is able to work. If sickness or injury prevents you from working, you remain ineligible until you can provide proof that you are able to work. That is the one place a disability and an unemployment claim touch.

Who qualifies for Alabama unemployment covers the able and available test and what the department asks for.

Vocational rehabilitation, the service Alabama itself runs

The Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services is the state agency for Alabamians with disabilities, created by the Legislature in 1994. It works through 25 community offices reaching residents in all 67 counties.

Its Vocational Rehabilitation Service is the part that deals with work. The goal is to let people with disabilities increase self-sufficiency through employment, and to widen the employment opportunities open to them. If you can no longer do the work you trained for, this is the Alabama service built for that.

To apply, or to refer someone else, contact the office serving your area through the Office Locations feature of the ADRS website, or call 800-441-7607. The ADRS state office is at 602 S. Lawrence St., Montgomery, AL 36104, and its number is (334) 293-7500.

Ticket to Work is a Social Security program that ADRS takes part in, not a state program of its own. It helps adults already receiving SSDI or SSI reach their employment goals and become more self-sufficient. Contact your local Vocational Rehabilitation office for an appointment with a rehabilitation counselor, find the full list of providers for your area at Choose Work, or call the Ticket to Work office on (800) 671-6842.

Where to search for jobs in Alabama covers the Alabama Career Centers, which carry vocational rehabilitation services among everything else they do.

Disability coverage you buy for yourself

The Alabama Department of Insurance's guide to disability insurance treats long-term disability coverage as something a person buys: through an insurance agent, directly from an insurance company, or by increasing the group policy an employer already offers.