To meet the disability listing and automatically qualify, your vision needs to be 20/200 or worse corrected in your best eye or have a visual field of less than 20°. However, if you are legally blind in one eye and not much better in your other, you should apply. Be advised that even with a clear cut case, it takes months to get approved and there is a five month waiting period for benefits beginning with the disability onset date the SSA decides. I applied in April 2017, was declared legally blind in May of 2017, and was approved for SSDI in July, but they moved my onset date to May. I got my first check in December because Social Security pays one month behind.

Not sure, but it would be woth talking to your states commission for the blind to determin, if you could apply, also talk to the people at the ssa, and see what they ahve to say as well.

It’s not easy but apply anyway and when they send you to an eye doctor for further testing ask the doc to humor you by adding notes like they are describing the issue to a toddler. The medical jargon seems to confuse the ssdi people so I really think notes in Laymans terms help, plus if you’ve got any sort of other health conditions or mental health conditions that contribute to your disability definitly add them to your application. And when it asks about your average day describe the worst days of your life not the getting by day to day make sure to give painstaking details about how painful anything is and how that contributes to making your day difficult. Also stress that the condition is degenerative, I wasn’t legally blind yet when disability qualified me in part due to my vision loss, I’m legally blind now but I wasn’t then I made the eye doctor describe plainly how my vision loss was expected to go and how it could be years or days, gradual loss or sudden retinal tear and we just don’t know for sure what will happen.

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I tried applying earlier this year. More or less just to see how the process works. I got the phone interview and when I told them I was still working how much I made, I was instantly denied. Keep in mind, if you income is higher than what they would give you, you'll be denied or not get a check from them. Whatever you income is, it must equal what they pay or less. You cannot make more than the awarded amount each month and get a check from them. I personally feel this is dumb, but not my call.

I've got a little ways to go before I can apply for SSDI. Best eye is at 20/100 for now, hopefully gets better.

Good luck!

There are a lot of long haul Covid patients applying right now so the process takes a little longer than usual. The website still says 5 months but it's actually 6 or 7.

I would start the application process in any case. From what I've heard from others it isn't uncommon to be denied initially. Checking the SSA website they have loads of information. Here is something on how they define visual disability:

tps://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/2.00-SpecialSensesandSpeech-Adult.htm

If you are denied, you can reapply or have your application reopened.

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