To be eligible for Social Security Disability benefits, you must also meet certain non-medical requirements. Specifically, a person must have recently worked long enough and recently enough in jobs covered by Social Security. Social Security is a federal program that uses taxes paid into a fund to provide benefits to eligible people. As such, a person is eligible to receive these benefits if they worked and paid Social Security taxes for a sufficient amount of time. A person must earn at least 40 Social Security credits to qualify for disability benefits.