The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs based on disability, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. SSDI provides benefits to disabled persons who are “insured” by workers’ contributions to the Social Security trust fund. You must have worked long enough and recently enough to be “insured” for SSDI. The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program makes cash assistance payments to disabled persons who have limited income and resources. You must have under a certain amount of money and resources to qualify for SSI. You do not need work credits to apply for SSI. Persons may be eligible for disability benefits under one or both the SSDI and SSI programs, or they could not be eligible for either program (such as where a person does not have enough, recent work credits to qualify for SSDI, and yet they have too many resources to qualify for SSI, i.e. because a spouse works and makes over a certain amount of money). After establishing these initial eligibility criteria (work credits or resources), SSA will then consider whether the claimant meets the disability/medical criteria. The average SSDI payment is approximately $1,400 (as of 2023). The maximum SSDI payment is $3,627 per month, whereas the maximum SSI payment is $914 (as of 2023).