AARP Hearing Center
.jpg?anchor=17,8&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=8wsalu&w=375 "Fall Movie Preview 2026")
12-minute read
Janice Gunn, pictured at her home in Memphis, fell behind on her car payments and taxes while awaiting a decision on her Social Security disability claim.
Houston Cofield
A former dental assistant with debilitating multiple sclerosis (MS). An ex-security guard with severe arthritis and asthma. An Army veteran and former teacher with herniated discs in his lower back, torn ligaments in his shoulder and ankle, and arthritis in his knees.
These are a few faces of the Social Security disability system. Hit with chronic illnesses and injuries in mid-life, these Americans have navigated the gauntlet of applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) — a thicket of medical appointments, bureaucratic demands, denials and appeals, frustration and financial strain.
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
The Social Security Administration (SSA) rejects most initial disability claims; of the 2.25 million decisions on initial disability applications the agency made in fiscal year 2025, 64 percent were denials. (That includes claims for both SSDI and Supplemental Security Income, the other SSA-administered benefit program serving people with disabilities.) At this first step in the appeals process, known as reconsideration, the denial rate that year was 84 percent.
Disability-rights advocates say the high rejection rate does not mean those applicants didn’t have serious disabilities. Some may have made technical errors in their paperwork, failed to include the right medical documentation or simply missed a deadline. Advocates note that people applying for disability benefits do so while grappling with complex, frightening health problems and the emotional toll of losing their livelihood and their careers.
“It’s not just paperwork we’re talking about, but people in the lurch,” says Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official and now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano has touted significant improvements in the disability application system. During his first year in office, from May 2025 to May 2026, the backlog of initial disability claims fell by 11.5 percent, from 974,000 cases to 862,000 (although it has since ticked back up to about 911,000, according to SSA performance data). Applicants’ wait for a decision dropped from 231 days to 184 days over the same period.
But that’s still more than six months, on average, just to get that initial determination. The average wait for a reconsideration by the SSA, the first step in appealing a denied claim, is nearly seven months. If reconsideration is denied, it takes another nine months on average to get to the next step, a hearing before a Social Security administrative law judge.
Even the first step “can be kind of overwhelming,” and the appeals can stretch out over months or years, says Stephanie Akpa, head of policy and public affairs at Atticus, a Social Security disability law firm.
“People plan for retirement. People don’t plan for a life-changing disability,” she says. “It’s sort of this unexpected shock to the system.”
As they navigate the application process, claimants have often lost their health insurance, fallen behind on their rent and utility bills and are struggling to pay for gas and groceries, she says: “They’re in crisis.”
In 2025, there were about 7.1 million workers across all age groups receiving SSDI benefits; about 13 percent were in their 40s, 32 percent were in their 50s, and nearly half (48 percent) in their 60s. (SSDI benefits automatically convert to retirement benefits when the person reaches full retirement age, which is 67 for people born in 1960 or later.)
AARP spoke with five people who have applied for or been awarded SSDI in recent years to find out what it’s really like for individuals who, facing a potentially permanent disruption in their ability to earn a living, seek a measure of financial security through this earned benefit. Here are their stories.
Physical decline, then denials
Melanie Gawne, 53, of Parma, Ohio
Melanie Gawne loved her job as a dental assistant — taking X-rays, making dentures and placing fillings. But about five years ago, she started losing control of her movements, mostly in her hands at first.
“I started dropping my instruments, which made it unsafe for my patients,” she recalls.
Gawne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system, causing
extreme fatigue, problems with concentration and pain that ranges from mild to unbearable.
Recognizing that she could no longer safely work with patients, she switched to a front desk job, helping with scheduling and other administrative tasks. But the fatigue that comes with MS became overwhelming — even with three cups of coffee, she could not stay awake.
“I would start slurring my words and forgetting things,” she says. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
In 2022, Gawne realized she would have to quit — a blow to her self-esteem and a frightening financial decision for her and her husband, a self-employed businessman who does bathroom remodeling. She applied for SSDI and was denied. Her neurologist said she was unable to work, but the SSA said there were jobs she could do — without specifying which ones.
“I honestly didn't understand what they were saying to me,” Gawne says. She appealed and was denied again. And then again.
Her husband had been working part-time so that he could be the primary caregiver for his adult daughter, who has special needs and lives with the couple. After Gawne left her dental job, he went back to full-time work and she took over caregiving, doing as much as she could to help her stepdaughter bathe and eat.
The couple were living “paycheck to paycheck,” barely managing to stay afloat, when they decided to hire an attorney to refile her claim. This time, after another year of waiting, she got approved in 2024, a full three years after her initial application.
The monthly SSDI payment has made “a huge difference,” she says. “It’s taken a burden off of us ... I am able to have some kind of financial security.”
Gunn earned degrees in management and leadership in middle age, intending to start a business that would keep her active into retirement, but worsening arthritis sidetracked her plans.
Houston Cofield
‘I had big dreams’
Janice Gunn, 56, of Memphis, Tennessee
Janice Gunn went back to college in her late 40s, taking night classes to finish her bachelor’s degree in management and online classes to earn a master’s in leadership. Her goal was to start her own catering or cleaning business to keep busy through retirement.
“I had big dreams. I was going to be self-employed,” she says. “But things didn’t work out that way.”
Gunn was diagnosed with arthritis in her back in 2020, when she was working as a warehouse security guard and team supervisor. It became more acute after she moved to a position in a bank vault, where she sometimes had to move big pallets of cash and coins.
She took a remote job with a health care firm, scheduling infusions and other treatments for patients. But the constant sitting became difficult, and she could rarely take breaks from her computer and phone.
“The pain was like shooting up my rectum to my back,” she says. “It just got worse.”
By 2023, her pain was unbearable and the medications she’d been prescribed made her feel tired and dizzy. Also suffering from asthma and anxiety, she decided to apply for SSDI.
“I always worked hard [and] didn’t expect anybody to give me anything,” she says. The recognition that she could no longer hold a job “took a lot out of me — mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually.”
The process of applying for disability was even more disheartening. Her initial claim was denied despite X-rays, MRIs and other evidence confirming her arthritis and related back problems. Her request for reconsideration was also denied, even though SSA-affiliated doctors attested to her physical and mental health problems.
With no work income, Gunn fell behind on her taxes and her car payments. Only after she appealed again and went before an administrative law judge was her disability claim approved in February 2025, about a year and half after she first applied.
Gunn can pay her bills now, although her credit is tarnished and she’s not sure if she will ever be able to clear all her debt. Still, she says, securing Social Security payments “made a huge difference, because it took some of that anxiety and depression off me.”
After a lifetime of service, worn out and ‘beat up’
Timothy Sachse, 64, of Delray Beach, Florida
Timothy Sachse joined the U.S. Army at age 23, serving five years on active duty and another 30 years in the reserves. He deployed to Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. Jumping in and out of military vehicles, weighted down with body armor and a 35-pound rucksack, took a toll on him. His day job — teaching high school students construction skills through hands-on home-building projects — wasn’t easy on his joints, either.
“Building things means that you have to be moving up and down and carrying things constantly,” he says. “That was just wearing on me a lot.… In my mind, I thought I was 21, but my body was saying, ‘No, you’re not.’”
By his late 50s, Sachse had herniated and degenerated discs in his lower back, torn ligaments in his shoulder and ankle, and arthritis in both his knees. One of his friends bluntly told him he looked worn out and “beat up.”
In 2023, Sachse applied for disability benefits. He and his wife, who had also spent decades working in the Delray Beach public schools, both retired during the COVID-19 pandemic and had small pensions from those jobs.
Sachse decided to hire an attorney from the get-go to help with his claim; when his initial application was denied, the lawyer assured him that was routine. They appealed, fleshed out his case file and waited.
In April 2026, Sachse had a hearing before an administrative law judge. He was nervous, thinking he would have to “stand up in front of this judge and try to explain to her that I hurt, even though you can’t see the pain that I carry.’”
In May, he received a letter from SSA approving his claim, and he received his first payment in June. The money helps with his medical expenses and gives him and his wife a little more financial breathing room. “We’re not living any grand life,” he says. “We’re not buying diamonds and pearls, but we’re getting by.”
Sachse says the hardest part of facing his disability isn’t losing his ability to work or the income that came with it. It’s thinking about the pain he’ll feel when his 16-month-old grandson holds out his arms to be picked up.
“To watch his eyes light up when he sees me, it’s just unbelievable,” he says. “He just wants me to hold him all the time, and I just can’t.”
Chronic injuries to his knees, back and shoulder ended Robin Moss' 30-year career as a mechanic with PepsiCo. The Ohio resident says applying for disabiiity felt like a "scary roll of the dice," but the benefits have helped ease the financial and emotional strain of leaving work behind.
Maddie McGarvey
‘It’s just a scary, scary roll of the dice’
Robin Moss, 61, of Grafton, Ohio
A former mechanic for Pepsi, Robin Moss spent nearly 30 years installing and repairing vending machines and soda fountains. “It’s a good job for a young man,” he says. But after three decades, the injuries started: meniscus tears in both his knees, bulging discs in his spine, a torn shoulder tendon that required rotator cuff surgery.
In a blue-collar job, “it kind of goes with the territory,” Moss says. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” But as the health issues piled up, there were service calls he simply couldn’t do.
“You physically can’t get on your knees and crawl underneath a bar at an Applebee’s and fix their bar gun,” he says. “You can’t crawl through the ceiling of a Taco Bell and pull syrup lines for the for the pop machine.”
Moss started worrying that he would have to retire early and wouldn’t be able to take care of his family, including an adult son who has special needs and requires in-home care. His prospects felt bleak, and his anxiety sometimes hit hard while he was on the job.
“You don’t want people knowing that about you,” he says. “That you’re under that much stress because you do fear for your job. And you do fear for being able to provide for your family, and that pressure gets to you.”
He was approved for short-term disability by Pepsi and started researching how to apply for SSDI. Giving up a good job at the company where he’d spent most of his adult life “was really a tough pill to swallow,” he says. “It’s just a scary, scary roll of the dice at that point in your life.”
Moss sought an attorney right out of the box. After reading online that most claims are initially denied and that the appeals process can run for years, he figured he’d probably end up hiring one eventually. “That’s too much money lost and could really put my family in jeopardy,” says Moss, who has four children.
The firm he hired filed his application in the fall of 2024, and he was granted benefits by January 2025, putting him among the 36 percent of applicants who get approved at the first step. He says the monthly payments have made a world of difference.
“It just takes all of that mental pressure and that anxiety and the depression and … kind of melts a lot of that,” he says. “You don't have to worry about whether or not you’re going to be able to pay your mortgage or feed your family or pay your bills.”
After applying for SSDI, Nicole Jackson Young, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, learned that the average wait time for a disability decision in her home state of Maryland was 515 days.
Maya Darasaw
Jumping through hoops
Nicole Jackson Young, 55, of Clinton, Maryland
For more than a decade, Nicole Jackson Young found ways to keep working while managing her MS. But in 2024, she got a frightening second diagnosis: cancer that required surgery to remove one of her kidneys. She finally realized she could not keep it up, especially as her office had ended remote-work options.
So last fall, at age 55, Jackson Young left her job as a special projects manager for the Prince George’s County government in Maryland and applied for disability benefits. “I want to take care of this body,” she says. “I have not been the best steward of it.”
She knew the process would be complicated and prolonged. Still, she was taken aback when she learned from an SSA representative that the average wait time for a disability decision in Maryland was 515 days.
After she filed her claim in November 2025, the SSA mailed her two forms — one for her to detail her work history and the other to document her disability, including her ability to drive, shop, cook and perform other basic tasks. She was instructed to handwrite the answers and mail or fax the forms back — a process that seemed archaic.
After four months, she received a denial letter, even though MS is among the conditions that SSA recognizes as meeting its baseline definition of disability. She appealed and has hired a law firm to represent her.
“They do things to dissuade you or discourage you from pushing through,” she says. “It’s like they want you to jump through hoops and then over the Empire State Building to get what’s yours.”
While she waits for a decision, Jackson Young and her husband have had to trim their spending. They are making do, thanks in part to a pension from her county job and her husband’s ongoing income. Still, she says, “I’m scared. This is uncharted water.”
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
More From AARP
Judge Losses Could Strain Disability System
Social Security has reduced backlogs but advocates say the exodus could reverse progress
How Income Inequality Affects Social Security
Rapid earnings growth at the top of the scale has undercut the program, AARP study finds
Social Security Changes Taking Effect in 2027
Benefits will rise as tax and earnings limits increase