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Sep 20, 2007

ALJs Respond To Charlotte Observer Article

The Charlotte Observer recently ran an article about backlogs at Social Security's Charlotte, NC hearing office. The article implied that low productivity by local Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) was a major factor in the backlogs.

This is a charge that I find to be ridiculous. It is inevitable that when you put any group of humans to work on any type of job that there will be a bell shaped curve of productivity. It is naive to think that the fault for this backlog lies with those ALJs who are on the lower end of this productivity curve, when clearly there are not enough of the ALJs and their support staff to get the job done. We cannot repeal the basic human characteristics which lead to the bell shaped curve of productivity. We must hire enough people to get the job done.

Making the same point in a different way are ALJ Randall Frye of Charlotte and Ronald Bernoski, the President of the Association of ALJs, in a response piece that is running in the Charlotte Observer. Here are some excerpts:

...As late as the 1990s, SSA had no significant disability case backlog. Today, the number of cases waiting to be heard exceeds 750,000. Yet the number of judges who handle these cases has remained static -- and the number of support staff has actually decreased.

According to figures released by SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue in FY 2006, administrative law judges handled 550,000 disability cases -- a level that exceeded the agency's own goals. ... In Charlotte in 2006 (the last year for which statistics are available), the disability court [court?] exceeded the agency's 100 percent standard by a full 17 percentage points. ...

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