I found this at an SSA lawyer blog web site and tried to get the link to the original data, but was not yet successful. The title of the post is 2011 Workload Data and included a chart that was created by an SSA attorney professional organization based on numbers provided by SSA. Again, I don't have links to the original source material.

http://socsecnews.blogspot.com/

The data shows that on a percentage of cases pending basis, a higher percentage of claims are approved at the hearing level (58%) than at the initial level (34%). However, I did a different analysis.

For 2011, there were approvals at all levels, the initial level and all appeals, totalling 1,605,813 claims.

69% of those claims approved were approved at the initial level. 69%! Nearly 7 out of 10 of claimants who are approved, are approved at the inital level. The vast number of approvals are done at the initial level. How can anyone say that the system it totally broken when 1,120,5074 out of 1,605,813 total approved claimants get benefits on the initial application in the year 2011?

I suppose it could still be argued that of all the denied claimants, that most of them should have one been part of that initial approval crowd and those are the people who participate in forums such as this, as a general rule. However, I believe (and think that everyone would agree with this statement) that there are many many claims for disability for people who are not truly disabled. Especially in a downturned economy when jobs are harder for everyone to get, the people with marginal skills or who live in towns with no sustaining industry might have a hard time and are looking for whatever they can get. And then, of course, are the scammers and then the people who want something for nothing.

I don't try to determine in this forum if anyone should or should not be entitled to benefits. I let the system we have figure it out. It may be flawed, but 1,120,574 people in 2011 would not agree that is broken since they were approved on the initial level. SSA could use additional staff at all levels. That might not increase approvals, but it would speed up the process and possibly more thorough analysis done earlier because there would be more people looking at the large number of claims.