Disabled Workers Reach Record Numbers

July 2007

The number of disabled workers facing the Social Security Administration (SSA) has climbed to record amounts. By the end of the first half of 2007, the SSA had over 745,000 appeals waiting for hearings that could be as far away as two and a half years.

The SSA currently operates at its lowest staffing level since the early 1970s. But the backlog of appeals for Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits has doubled in the past six years, and is projected to reach one million by 2010.

About 65 percent of the 2.5 million SSD claims filed every year are denied. Of the appeals, about 62 percent are approved. The present total of American workers collecting SSD benefits is 15.3 million, a 24 percent increase in the past five years.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had one of the lowest wait times for an SSD appeal hearing, averaging about nine months. But other parts of the country saw hearings scheduled as far away as 31 months from the filing date, with a national average of 17 months. In some cases, workers have died before their SSD hearing date ever arrived.