California Land Disability Insurance (SDI)

Often Asked Questions

SDI is an insurance program run past the California Employment Evolution Department that pays weekly benefits of 55% of your boilerplate wages for up to a year if you are unable to piece of work because you:

  • Take a non-piece of work-related illness or injury
  • Are pregnant, or
  • Need to take Paid Family unit Leave (PFL) to care for a ill relative or to bond with a new kid.
    • Annotation: PFL only provides benefits for up to viii weeks.

The program is paid for by SDI taxes that are taken out of most employees' paychecks. If you are self-employed or a business owner, yous tin can pay to become Constituent Coverage, which only provides benefits for 39 weeks instead of a year.

COVID-19 and SDI/PFL

If you are sick due to COVID-19, y'all may qualify for SDI benefits. If you are caring for somebody who is ill due to COVID-19, you may qualify for PFL. Meet EDD's questions and answers about COVID-19 and the state of California'due south chart of all the dissimilar benefits that may assist families impacted by COVID-19.

To get help with questions nearly the State Disability Insurance (SDI) program, including Paid Family unit Leave (PFL), you demand to contact the Employment Evolution Department (EDD) of California. EDD provides a list of ways to contact them about SDI or PFL, including online conversation, telephone numbers, and office locations.

Tip: If you are contacting EDD by telephone, consider calling one of the non-English phone numbers -- information technology can exist quicker to go through on those phones, and the people who answer them know all about SDI and PFL, and speak English in improver to the other language.

Note: DB101 cannot reply questions about your SDI claim. If you have questions, please contact EDD.

Employees pay for State Inability Insurance through a minor SDI tax (1.1% of earnings) that is automatically taken out of their paychecks. That money is put into a fund, and used to pay for SDI benefits (including Paid Family Leave). People who are self-employed or business owners can cull to buy elective coverage by paying premiums based on their profits from the previous twelvemonth.

About California employees are covered by SDI.

Some groups of employees are not covered, including:

  • Interstate Railroad workers
  • Some domestic workers
  • Well-nigh government employees
  • Some employees of not-profit organizations
  • Cocky-employed workers or business concern owners who practice not pay for constituent coverage

Paid Family Leave (PFL) is part of the State Disability Insurance (SDI) programme. PFL replaces some of the income yous lose when yous miss work to care for a sick relative or bond with a new child, for upward to eight weeks in a twelvemonth. Your benefit amount is calculated the same manner as SDI, but there'south a dissimilar form to apply for PFL.

Annotation: Before July 1, 2020, you could only accept six weeks of PFL per year.

The SDI program by and large pays 55% of the average wages you earned before the start of your disability. To calculate your boilerplate income, SDI looks at a yearlong period that starts around 17 months before your inability, and ends around five months before your disability. Those 12 months are called your base period. SDI divides your base period into four quarters and uses the quarter when yous had the highest wages to figure your average income, and your benefit amount.

Learn more about Computing SDI Benefits, and cheque the chart of Weekly Benefit Amounts.

For SDI or PFL benefits, your base of operations period is the 12 months from roughly 17 months to roughly 5 months before the start of your inability.

In 2022, the base periods are:

Claims beginning in the months of January, February, or March of 2022:
The base catamenia is the 12 months from October one, 2020 to September xxx, 2021.

Claims outset in the months of April, May, or June of 2022:
The base period is the 12 months from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021.

Claims kickoff in the months of July, August, or September of 2022:
The base period is the 12 months from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

Claims starting time in the months of October, November, or December of 2022:
The base menses is the 12 months from July one, 2021 to June 30, 2022.

It's a little complicated. The unproblematic answer is that your benefit period commonly ends on the date your medical provider lists on your claim course, saying you lot should be able to work by that date. Afterwards that appointment, if you still tin't work considering of your disability, you and your medical provider can ask for a longer benefit menstruum.

However, SDI is designed to supercede your income for upward to 52 weeks of missing work because of your disability (39 weeks for elective coverage and 8 weeks for Paid Family Leave). You tin can become SDI benefits of up to 52 times your weekly benefit amount, if your medical provider certifies that you withal can't work because of your inability.

If you can get back to work part-fourth dimension or get other income before your benefit period ends, your weekly payment might go downwardly, and you can become benefits for longer than 52 weeks, until you lot get the total amount you qualify for.

For example, Sam gets an SDI benefit of $200 a week, and qualifies for up to $10,400 in full SDI payments ($200 10 52 = $ten,400). After 6 months, Sam has gotten $v,200 in benefits, or one-half his total. Sam goes back to work office-fourth dimension, and his weekly benefit drops to $200 a week. His medical provider says Sam continues to be unable to work total fourth dimension because of his disability, so Sam keeps getting his $200 weekly SDI payment for another 12 months, until he reaches his $10,400 limit.

SDI gives cash payments to employees who are unable to work because of a not-work-related inability, and SDI defines a inability every bit "... an affliction or injury, either concrete or mental, which prevents you from performing your regular and customary piece of work." The definition also includes elective surgery, pregnancy, childbirth, or other related medical conditions. Your medical provider has to certify that your status meets this definition.

To become Paid Family unit Leave because you are caring for a sick relative, the relative has to have a mental or physical condition that requires calm intendance or in-patient care in a hosptial, hospice, or residential medical facility, with continuing handling by a doctor or other health care provider.

No. SDI has no limits on what yous can own or have in the bank.

At that place is a vii-day waiting period, which means y'all won't get whatever SDI benefits for the first week you're off work because of a non-work-related injury or affliction. Benefits start on the eighth twenty-four hours. It typically takes SDI 14 days to process an application, so you usually start getting your benefit payments two weeks after y'all file your claim.

Notation: There is no waiting period for Paid Family unit Exit (PFL).

California State Disability Insurance (SDI) is a country program that provides curt-term benefits (up to a year) if you can't work considering of a non-job-related injury or illness. Employees pay into the system through SDI taxes that are taken out of their paychecks. People who are self-employed or business owners tin cull to pay for elective coverage. SDI covers a wide range of disabilities lasting more than seven days. Information technology also offers Paid Family unit Leave (upward to eight weeks) for those who are caring for a ill relative or bonding with a new child.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a federal program giving long-term cash benefits to people who take paid into the system (through income taxes while working for at least a minimum amount of time) and tin't piece of work because of a disability.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal program providing long-term cash benefits to low-income people who have a inability, are blind, or are 65 or older.

To authorize for SSDI or SSI, the disability exist a full inability lasting for at least 12 months (in a row) or that can be expected to result in decease. The person must not only be unable to do his or her previous work, merely also that he or she cannot -- considering historic period, pedagogy, and piece of work experience -- practice whatever other kind of work that exists in the national economy.

Yeah. It'south possible to qualify for California'due south Land Disability Insurance (SDI) while you are on ane or both of the federal programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Still, getting SDI benefits might make your SSI or SSDI benefits either go down or end altogether.

You practise not have to reapply. However, you must tell SDI immediately if you:

  • Get back to work part fourth dimension or full fourth dimension
  • Recover from your disability, or
  • Get whatever other type of income.

Yous must also imemdiately report the death of a person getting SDI payments.

At certain times SDI asks y'all to "certify" (fill out a class online or by mail) that you lot nonetheless qualify for benefits, and if yous practice not do this your benefits end. If you are getting automatic payments, you are asked to certify after 10 weeks of getting benefits. If you are not getting automatic payments, you have to fill out a certification form every two weeks.

Once you are on SDI, equally long every bit you are still unable to work because of your inability your benefit payments will continue upwards until the "return to work" date your medical provider listed on your awarding. If your disability lasts past that date, you and your medical provider must ask to extend your benefit period. SDI benefits replace up to 52 weeks of lost income, but if you get a partial benefit you might go payments for longer.

For details, run into How long does the SDI benefit concluding?

The SDI application does not require any sort of proof of citizenship or immigration status.

Yes. Y'all can get a partial or full benefit if you are working less than your regular hours.

No. You lot cannot get Unemployment Insurance and SDI benefits at the aforementioned time. You should consider applying for Unemployment Insurance if y'all are now able to work and looking for work. You should apply for SDI if you are unable to work considering of a non-work-related disability.

If y'all can become back to work full time, you no longer go SDI benefits. If you return to work office-time, SDI looks at how much your SDI payments and your function-time wages are when added together. If that is less than what you earned earlier the kickoff of your inability, you continue to get your full SDI benefit. However, if your SDI do good added to your part-fourth dimension wages is more than than what yous earned earlier your inability began, your SDI payment may go down.

For instance, Sam earned $1,000 a week earlier his disease, and now gets $600 a week from SDI. After several months he'south able to get dorsum to piece of work part-fourth dimension, and earns $500 a week. His $600 SDI payment plus his $500 in wages is $1,100, which is more than the $1,000 Sam earned before he got sick. So his SDI payment drops to $500, merely he continues to go this partial SDI payment.

If y'all get a partial SDI benefit, you lot might get SDI payments for more than the 52 week maximum (39 weeks for constituent coverage). For details, see How long does the SDI benefit last?

Yous must file your claim between 9 and 49 days after the start of your disability. You cannot submit your application until the 9th day, and if you expect as well long yous may lose your benefits. If you file your merits afterwards the 49th twenty-four hours, include a alphabetic character explaining why y'all couldn't submit your claim on fourth dimension.

Yes. For a pregnancy without complications, the benefit period is generally from four weeks before your due date to six weeks after your delivery. If your pregnancy prevents y'all from working earlier or afterwards that period, your doctor has to explain why on the claim class.

Notation: This article focuses on SDI for people with disabilities and Paid Family Leave (PFL) for people taking care of a person with a disability. If you have questions almost Pregnancy Disability Leave, contact the EDD.

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