From an op ed in the Washington Post by A.P.D.G. Everett:
Social Security’s “disabled adult child” program has a simple rule: Someone who suffers a disability before age 22 can claim benefits on the basis of a parent’s earnings record, because they are not considered to have reached economic adulthood. But if the disability occurs after their 22nd birthday, they are on their own, even though young adults have not generally worked long enough to receive meaningful benefits.
That rule once made sense. It no longer does.
The age-22 cutoff reflects a mid-20th-century assumption about how adulthood unfolds — one in which education ended at 18, full-time work began immediately and economic independence was typically achieved by the early 20s. Disability before that point plausibly meant a person never had a realistic opportunity to enter the labor market. …
Today, undergraduate education routinely extends to age 22 or 23. Graduate, professional and credentialing pathways can delay stable employment well into the mid- to late 20s. Even among those who leave school earlier, insured status is often not available — because it now takes longer to accumulate sufficient earnings credits to qualify for meaningful coverage.
The author, a graduate student in biomedical engineering at the University of Vermont, recommends a cutoff age of 26. Wait until he finds out about the marriage penalty for disabled adult child recipients.
