Good News For One Claimant

From the Lake County News-Sun:

Erma Graham worked when she was able to work, even after she was diagnosed with manic depression, even with chronic back pain, even after uterine fibroids caused her to hemorrhage every day as she stood deep-frying chicken in hot restaurant kitchens.

... [T]he day came when she was just too weak to work as a fast-food cook and home health-care aide. That's the day, in October 2004, that she first filed for Social Security disability benefits. Her claim was quickly denied. She applied again in 2005 and again in 2006. ...

Graham persevered, with a friend's encouragement, even after an attorney suggested her case was unwinnable. Acting on her own in 2007, she filed an appeal. Last October, four years after she first asked for help, a hearing office in Evanston finally heard her case ... She received word of a favorable ruling in November. In January, she received her first disability check.

Graham is one of more than 13 million Social Security disability beneficiaries across the nation. While the federal government pays $12 billion in disability benefits each month, it fails to pay millions more because of huge appeal backlogs. The Chicago region has an average of 776 cases pending per ALJ, the second-highest pending caseload nationally, according to the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives.

But the waits are shorter for Evanston, where all northern Chicagoland and Lake and McHenry county claims are heard. That office ranks 13 out of 143 hearing offices nationwide in turnaround time. Its average processing time is 463 days. ...

But Evanston's efficiency received an odd pat on the back from the federal government, which sent Evanston's 10 judges 2,000 more cases from backlogged Flint, Mich., the slowest hearing office in the nation.