Social Security Backlog Cases Review
In an effort to reduce the backlog of cases pending at the hearing level, Social Security Administration Commissioner Astrue made increasing the Administration Law Judge (ALJ) productivity one of his key initiatives. The goal was having all ALJ’s issue 500-600 dispositions each year. How did the Social Security Administration (SSA) fare?*
The average number of case dispositions per ALJ increased 13% from FY 2005 to FY 2007. While the majority of ALJs fall into the range of 400-700 dispositions per year, there is wide variation ranging from a low of 1 per year to a high of 2,592 cases per year. The average case processing times increased from 443 days in FY 2005 to 512 days in FY 2007. This is an increase of 16%. Not surprisingly, there was a huge variation in average processing times for individual ALJs. The lowest was 63 days and the highest was 1,220 days.
Source: NOSSCR, Social Security Forum, Volume 30, Number 7, August, 2008
The full report is entitled Congressional Response Report: Administrative Law Judge and Hearing Office Performance, No. A-07-08-28094 (August 2008eport) It is available online at ssa.gov.
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