New ALJ Assignments Questioned

From the Charlotte Observer:

The federal government admits sick workers in the Charlotte area wait longer for help than almost anyone else in the nation.

But when officials hired nearly 200 new administrative law judges this year to expedite disability hearings, only one was assigned to Charlotte's Disability Adjudication and Hearing Office.

Instead, the Social Security Administration sent three or more judges to places like Huntington, W.Va.; Portland, Maine; and New Orleans, where waits are among the shortest nationwide. ...

Social Security Administration officials didn't directly explain why they put only one new judge in Charlotte.

“The new ALJs were assigned on the basis of the national workload needs assessment,” a Social Security Administration official said in an e-mail response to the Observer.