A bipartisan bill introduced in both chambers of Congress this year would let Social Security Disability Insurance recipients start collecting benefits immediately after approval, instead of enduring the five-month waiting period that currently leaves confirmed claimants with no income at all. The We Can’t Wait Act of 2026 would trade a modest, permanent cut to the monthly check for money now, an option its sponsors say matters most to people who are terminally ill or otherwise cannot afford to wait. The bill has not passed either chamber, but it arrives with bipartisan sponsors and a federal watchdog’s numbers behind it.
A Five-Month Gap That Leaves Approved Claimants With Nothing
Under current law, the Social Security Administration imposes a mandatory five-month waiting period after determining that a worker is disabled and entitled to SSDI benefits, and no payments go out during that stretch even though the disability has already been confirmed. Sponsors say the gap forces people who have already cleared the SSA’s strict medical and work-history bar to qualify to go months without the benefit they were just approved to receive.
A 2020 Government Accountability Office report cited by the bill’s sponsors found that roughly 48,000 people filed for bankruptcy between fiscal years 2014 and 2019 while their disability appeals were still pending, and an estimated 109,725 applicants died between fiscal 2008 and 2019 before receiving a final decision. Those numbers describe the broader disability appeals backlog rather than the five-month wait alone, but sponsors point to them as evidence of how costly delay can be for people who are already approved and simply waiting on a first check.
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How the We Can’t Wait Act Would Change the Math
The Senate version of the We Can’t Wait Act, S. 3924, was introduced on February 25, 2026, by Susan Collins of Maine and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. It would not eliminate the five-month wait outright; instead, it would let an approved SSDI claimant elect to start receiving benefits immediately, in exchange for a modest, permanent reduction to the monthly payment designed to keep the option cost-neutral for the program over time.
The reduction is not a flat percentage written into the bill text. The legislation directs the Social Security Administration’s Chief Actuary to calculate, and periodically recalculate, the adjustment needed to preserve the actuarial balance of the Disability Insurance Trust Fund over a 75-year projection period, and it would require the agency to build a benefits calculator so applicants can see the tradeoff in dollar terms before they choose.
The proposal would apply to qualifying SSDI applicants who have not yet reached early retirement age and who are already entitled to disability benefits under the program’s existing standards. It does not create a new category of eligibility; it only changes when an already-approved recipient can start being paid, and anyone who prefers the full, un-reduced monthly amount can simply decline the election and wait the five months as they would today.
“This isn’t five months of free money. It’s essentially an option to trade some future income for desperately needed income today,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. “For someone facing a terminal illness, eviction, medical bills or no paycheck … that can be an enormously valuable trade. Someone who remains on disability for many years may ultimately collect less.”
Fiscal advisers have raised a related concern: the tradeoff can look better on paper than it does after decades of a permanently smaller check, particularly for beneficiaries who feel pressured into the choice because they need cash immediately. Drew Powers, founder of the Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, said a full accounting is not yet possible because the exact reduction formula has not been published: “A true cost-benefit analysis cannot be done until actual figures are presented. As always, the devil is in the details.”
A Bipartisan Bill Still Working Through Committee
The Senate bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee after its February introduction and had not been scheduled for a committee vote as of early September. A companion bill was introduced in the House on September 1, 2026, by Republican Representative Carol Miller of West Virginia with Democratic cosponsors, and it was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Both chambers would need to pass identical versions of the bill before it could reach the president’s desk, and no floor vote has been scheduled in either chamber. The bill does not touch SSDI eligibility rules, the disability determination process, or the benefit amount for anyone who chooses to keep waiting the full five months under current law.
Collins has pushed a version of this idea before. She introduced an earlier We Can’t Wait Act with then-Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan in 2023, which did not advance, and in 2019 she cosponsored the ALS Disability Insurance Access Act, which eliminated the five-month wait specifically for ALS patients and was signed into law in 2020. That narrower carve-out is the closest precedent for a broader version of the same fix, and until the Finance and Ways and Means committees act, an SSDI applicant approved this month still faces the same five-month wait as everyone before them.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team before publication.
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