The House Majority Report on the Social Security Administration (SSA) Integrity Hearing

The House Majority issued a report related to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s June 11th hearing on the integrity of the SSA’s appeals process with regard to how the SSA addresses high allowance Administrative Law Judges (ALJs).

The Majority’s report discussed a variety of related issues and concerns including:

– ALJs with “red-flag” allowance rates (higher than 75%), and how between 2005 and 2013, these high allowance ALJs awarded some 1.3 million people federal disability benefits, costing taxpayers about $400 billion over a lifetime

-Case studies suggesting the questionable conduct of several ALJs with a greater than 90% allowance rate

-The SSA’s failure to act on information regarding the questionable conduct of the high allowance ALJs featured in the above-mentioned case studies, even with the knowledge that some of these ALJs did not hold hearings before awarding benefits

-How hundreds of ALJs routinely reverse Disability Determination Services (DDS) denial decisions, even though cases have usually been denied twice before reaching an ALJ.