SSDI payment calculator.

SSDI is the PIA, not a percentage of it

Social Security Disability Insurance has no early-claiming reduction. 20 CFR 404.317 states that the monthly disability benefit “is equal to the primary insurance amount (PIA),” computed as if the worker were 62 at the start of the five-month waiting period. So the question “how much is SSDI” is really “what is my PIA,” and the PIA comes from one formula applied to the average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) on the worker’s record. This page applies that formula; SSA computes the AIME itself from indexed earnings, which the tool takes as an input.

The formula and the bend points

POMS RS 00605.021 sets out the computation: round the AIME down to the whole dollar, take 90 percent of the AIME through the first bend point, 32 percent of the AIME through the second bend point and 15 percent of the AIME above it, then round the result to the lower dime. That is the raw PIA as of January of the eligibility year, and SSA then adds each COLA from the eligibility year through the month of entitlement. The bend points are reset every year with the national average wage index and belong to the year of first eligibility, which for SSDI is normally the year the disability began.

All six rows come from SSA’s POMS chart RS 00605.900, revised October 29, 2026. The 2026 figures also appear in SSA’s notice of the 2026 cost-of-living increase and other determinations, which shows the derivation: the 1979 bend points of $180 and $1,085 multiplied by the ratio of the 2024 national average wage index ($69,846.57) to the 1977 index ($9,779.44), rounded to the nearest dollar. The family-maximum bend points in the last column apply to retirement and survivor families; disability families use a different rule, described next.

The disability family maximum

Under 20 CFR 404.403(d-1), for a worker first eligible after 1978 and first entitled to disability benefits after June 1980, the family maximum is found in three steps: take 85 percent of the AIME and compare it with the PIA, keeping the larger; take 150 percent of the PIA; the smaller of those two is the monthly family maximum. POMS RS 00615.742 states the same rule and adds that intervening COLAs are added afterwards. The regulation notes the consequence for low earners: “the entitled spouse and children of some workers will not be paid any benefits because the family maximum does not exceed the primary insurance amount.”

A spouse’s benefit on a living worker’s record is one-half of the PIA (20 CFR 404.333) and so is a child’s (20 CFR 404.353). When those halves add up to more than the family maximum minus the PIA, the dependents’ benefits are reduced to fit; the worker’s own benefit is never reduced by the maximum. The tool shares the available amount equally among the dependents you enter.

Worked example

A worker with an AIME of $4,000 becomes eligible in 2026 and has a spouse and one child on the record. The PIA is 90% of $1,286 = $1,157.40, plus 32% of ($4,000 − $1,286) = 32% of $2,714 = $868.48, for $2,025.88, rounded down to $2,025.80. That is the monthly SSDI benefit. For the family maximum, 85% of $4,000 is $3,400, which is larger than the PIA, so the first figure is $3,400; 150% of the PIA is $3,038.70; the smaller, $3,038.70, is the maximum. Dependents can share $3,038.70 − $2,025.80 = $1,012.90. Each is nominally $1,012.90 (half the PIA), which together exceed the room, so each receives $506.40 after rounding to the dime, and the household total is $3,038.60. A second case: an AIME of $1,000 gives a PIA of $900.00; 85% of AIME is $850, below the PIA, so the maximum is $900.00 and the dependents receive nothing. A third: an AIME of $10,000 reaches the 15% band, giving $1,157.40 + $2,068.16 + $337.65 = $3,563.21, or $3,563.20 after rounding, with a family maximum of $5,344.80.

Earlier eligibility and the COLA

If you became eligible in 2025, your PIA uses the 2025 bend points ($1,226 and $7,391) and then receives the 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase that SSA’s notice sets for benefits payable from January 2026: an AIME of $4,000 gives a 2025 raw PIA of $1,991.00, and $2,046.70 after the increase. The tool shows that line, labelled derived, when you choose 2025. COLAs for later years are not applied because they are not yet published.

Working while on SSDI

The same SSA notice fixes the 2026 substantial gainful activity amounts at $1,690 a month for non-blind workers and $2,830 for statutorily blind workers, and sets $1,210 as the earnings that make a month count toward the trial work period. Those limits govern eligibility rather than the benefit amount, so they are shown for reference only; the trial-work and SGA pages linked above work through them.

Method

The tool rounds the AIME down to the dollar, applies the three percentages with the chosen year’s bend points and rounds the PIA down to the dime, exactly as POMS RS 00605.021 describes. It computes the disability family maximum as the smaller of max(85% of AIME, PIA) and 150% of PIA, rounds it down to the dime (the regulation gives no rounding step for this formula; the lower-dime rounding is this page’s convention, like the retirement formula in 404.403(c)), gives each dependent half the PIA, and if the dependents’ total exceeds the maximum minus the PIA, divides the available amount equally among them. Amounts are before any Medicare premium, offset or whole-dollar benefit rounding.

What this does not cover

• Computing the AIME from an earnings record, including the dropout years that SSDI allows depending on age.
• The workers’ compensation and public disability offset that 20 CFR 404.317 says may reduce the benefit before full retirement age.
• Medicare Part B premium deductions, the five-month waiting period, back pay and the whole-dollar rounding of the amount actually paid.
• Benefits for a divorced spouse, a disabled adult child or dependents entitled on more than one record.
• Windfall elimination and government pension offset cases, and SSI, which is a separate program with its own payment amounts.

Figures read from the sources below on November 11, 2026. Last updated November 11, 2026.

Sources

• SSA POMS RS 00605.900: List of RAW PIA and Family Maximum Computations (bend points by year, revised 10/29/2026) (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• SSA POMS RS 00605.021: Computation of the PIA Under the 1978 New Start Method (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• SSA POMS RS 00615.742: Maximum Family Benefits Based on DIB Eligibility After 1978 (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• SSA, Cost-of-Living Increase and Other Determinations for 2026, 90 FR, November 3, 2025 (govinfo) (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• 20 CFR 404.317: How is the amount of my disability benefit calculated? (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• 20 CFR 404.403: Reduction where total monthly benefits exceed maximum family benefits payable (retrieved November 11, 2026)
• 20 CFR 404.333: Wife’s and husband’s benefit amounts and 20 CFR 404.353: Child’s benefit amounts (retrieved November 11, 2026)