• Social Security benefits for a child."My 5-year old vintage" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: lepiaf.geo (Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
  
  

Disability

• A minor child can receive a Social Security disability insurance payment because of a permanent handicap afflicting the child.
  
  

Death of a Parent

• If a parent dies, a minor child can also receive Social Security payments.
  
  

Considerations

• A child cannot receive government payments directly. In most cases, a parent is designated to receive payments on behalf of the child.
  
  

Primary Custody

• Typically if both parents are alive, the parent who has primary custody of the child will be designated to receive and oversee Social Security benefit payments for that youngster.
  
  

Warning

• With some regularity an issue arises that complicates the issuance of Social Security benefit payments to be used on behalf of a child. If that occurs, obtaining an experienced Social Security lawyer is advisable.