An applicant for disability payments under the Disability Insurance and the Supplemental Security Income programs initially submits an application to the offices administered by the different states. An applicant turned down at this initial level can appeal to special Social Security courts administered by the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR), asking these courts to overturn the initial decision and rule that the individual is eligible for disability payments.

These Social Security courts are administrative bodies rather than part of the federal judicial system. Administrative law judges (ALJs) who are employees of the Social Security Administration reconsider the application and decide — typically after a hearing on the merits of the claim — whether to grant or deny the application for disability payments.

These data concern the pending case loads and average processing times at this hearings level.

Sources of Data. Findings are based upon an analysis of data released by ODAR covering, for each hearing office, the pending case loads and average processing times associated with these disability appeals.

Definition of Measures. The following statistics are currently included:

• Cases Pending:

• Counts. This figure reflects the reported number of appeals pending before that administrative unit (regional, state, individual hearing office) requesting a hearing before ODAR on the applicants claim. Pending cases reflect not only appeals received by that locale, but reflect the impact of transfers made to redistribute workload into and out of that locale from other offices. For separate figures on the volume of such transfers by hearing office see accompanying table.
• Percent Change, 1 Month. This compares the pending cases at the end of a given month with the number pending at the end of the previous month, and TRAC then calculated the percentage change between these two figures.
• Percent Change, 12 Months. This compares the pending cases at the end of a given month with the number pending at the end of the same calendar month in the previous year, and TRAC then calculated the percentage change between these two figures.

• Processing Time:

• Counts. This looks at dispositions that occurred in a given month and calculates the average number of days that elapsed between the receipt of the appeal and the disposition of that appeal for the given administrative unit (regional, state, individual hearing office). Statistics shown have been converted by TRAC to display processing time for cases disposed of in a given month from cumulative fiscal year end figures released by the agency so that month-by-month trends in actual dispositions can be viewed, and the current status of individual hearing offices, states, and regions can be more readily compared.
• Percent Change, 1 Month. This compares the average days for disposition of an appeal for the given month with the previous month, and TRAC then calculated the percentage change between these two figures.
• Percent Change, 12 Months. This compares the average days for disposition of an appeal for a given month with the comparable figure for the same calendar month in the previous year, and TRAC then calculated the percentage change between these two figures.

Regional, State and Individual Hearing Office Statistics. The original data track 162 separate hearing offices. TRAC aggregated the underlying numbers and calculated parallel statistics, based upon the hearing office’s location within each state, and its assignment either to a particular ODAR regional office or to the National Hearing Office. Statistics for the U.S. therefore do not include dispositions of a small number of cases which weren’t reflected in individual hearing office workloads. ODAR also indicates that the data they release are preliminary and reflect statuses in their tracking databases near the end of each month.