DDS Allowance Rates

      Social Security has posted statistics on allowance rates at the initial and reconsideration levels on disability claims.

Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security
Income (SSI) Disability Claims
Allowance Rates1/
Initial and Reconsideration Adjudicative Level
Fiscal Year 2026
by Nation, Region and State
	INITIAL	RECONSIDERATION
NATIONAL	35.9	14.9
NATIONAL - DDS ONLY	35.9	14.9
BOSTON	39.2	15.4
CT	41.7	14.0
ME	39.3	14.3
MA	35.3	15.5
NH	44.0	20.3
RI	44.0	15.7
VT	45.7	16.0
NEW YORK	35.1	14.0
NJ	33.0	13.9
NY	35.6	14.0
PR2/	42.0	14.3
PHILADELPHIA	35.7	14.1
DE	39.1	12.5
DC	33.0	12.5
MD	43.0	16.7
PA	35.7	13.4
VA	36.3	15.4
WV	33.9	12.3
VA EST3/	22.1	13.2
ATLANTA	36.3	15.7
AL	32.8	15.6
FL	42.0	15.7
GA	35.2	21.1
KY	29.9	9.6
MS	35.4	15.1
NC	37.3	14.2
SC	37.3	16.1
TN	34.3	13.6
MS EST3/	0.0	0.0
CHICAGO	35.7	13.7
IL	36.4	16.9
IN	33.4	11.3
MI	34.6	13.5
MN	39.1	9.9
OH	36.3	12.8
WI	35.9	15.7
DALLAS	36.0	16.2
AR	35.1	12.2
LA	37.7	17.8
NM	41.1	20.3
OK	33.6	14.5
TX	36.5	15.5
AR EST3/	33.6	19.0
OK EST3/	32.1	0.0
KANSAS CITY	39.7	12.9
IA	40.0	10.3
KS	43.6	20.7
MO	38.1	13.0
NE	41.3	13.1
DENVER	35.4	14.1
CO	31.9	13.3
MT	38.5	18.2
ND	40.1	17.4
SD	39.4	11.1
UT	37.3	14.8
WY	40.7	14.2
SAN FRANCISCO	33.8	14.9
AZ	29.6	14.8
CA	34.5	15.1
HI	36.8	15.7
NV	35.2	12.8
SEATTLE	35.6	13.2
AK	54.5	33.0
ID	35.1	11.8
OR	36.7	14.3
WA	33.7	12.5
FEDERAL4/	54.1	18.3
San Juan DPU	5/	5/
Atlanta DPB	0.0	0.0
Chicago DPB	91.1	25.0
Kansas City DPB	0.0	0.0
New York DPB	4.2	1.1
Philadelphia DPB	0.0	0.0
San Francisco DPB	0.0	0.0
Boston DPU	5/	5/
Dallas DPU	5/	5/
Denver DPU	5/	5/
Seattle DPU	5/	5/
Philadelphia DPU	5/	5/
OCO	0.0	0.0
INTPSC	44.0	21.2
Guam	48.1	24.8
Virgin Islands	5/	5/
1/Allowance and denial rates equal 100%.
2/Includes Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI, Title II) only as there is no Supplemental Security Income (SSI, Title XVI) in Puerto Rico.
3/ EST DDS data comes from four extended service team sites in Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Workload from State DDSs is transferred into these sites.
4/Federal Site data comes from the following SSA sites:  Office of Central Operations; International Payment Service Center; Guam; the Virgin Islands; and Disability Program Branches in the Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco Regions.
5/The federal sites that have zero allowance rates are sites where they do not have their own legacy system and complete cases by remotely logging into the legacy system of the state they are assisting.  Therefore, the allowance information rolls up into the state they are assisting.
Note:  Allowance rates are on determinations completed by State Disability Determination Services (DDSs) and other components which make disability determinations.  For workload balancing issues, cases may be transferred to other states or to SSA components for determinations.  Determinations are not always done in the applicants' state of residence.
Cases processed in the ESTs and Federal sites DO NOT include cases under QDD, CAL, and other fast track case screening.  Accordingly, allowance rates in those sites are NOT comparable to regular State DDSs. Allowance rates equal to zero indicate no cases.  High rates may indicate very small numbers of cases.
Produced By: SSA/LDP/DP/ARTS/DSSIT
Date Produced: October 28, 2026
Data Source: SSA SAOR (State Agency Operations Report)

Struggling In Rhinelander

      From WORT in Madison, WI:

The Social Security Administration office in Rhinelander, Wisconsin has recently cut their hours in half due to a severe staffing shortage. This is happening in other locations around the country as the agency has been truncated and starved of operating funds. Labor Radio spoke with Jessica LaPointe, President of both the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, Council 220 and Local 1346.

REPORTER: What is going on with the Social Security Administration in Rhinelander?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: Rhinelander has a field office up there that serves about 35 people a day plus another 40 people that are looking to get a temporary work visa for summer camps and ski resorts and agricultural work visas.

Basically, that field office has reduced their service hours from 9 to 4 to 9 to 12:30 due to under staffing.

REPORTER: What is full staffing there?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: About 12. They were reduced to about 7 over the years and then in the last two years they’ve been reduced to 2.

REPORTER: Why did this happen?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: The 12 to 7 (cut of employees) is a result of budget cuts and limited hiring over the last decade and a half. And then, in January 2025, the Trump administration sent the Department of Government Efficiency to incentivize workers to leave, paid workers about $25,000 to leave. That reduced staff and then that had a snowball effect on attrition where workloads became unmanageable and workers began to burn out and become very stressed.

And then our rights began to get stripped as workers, our workplace flexibilities, our ability to get time off and care for ourselves and our family. That caused more people to leave as pressures began to mount so now they’re down to 2 and now they have to reduce the service hours in the office.

REPORTER: Who does this affect?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: This affects the community of Rhinelander.  The closest field office is about an hour away in Wausau. And then it affects the businesses that now don’t have that office to go to to get their worker visas taken care of, to get replacement social security cards timely.

Now there’s one remaining front desk worker, one remaining claim specialist. They’re also at risk of burnout. …

Wouldn’t There Have Been A Smell Problem?

      From WKRC:

A Colorado couple was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to concealing a man’s body for more than a year and using his identity to access his Social Security benefits, prosecutors said.

James Agnew, 58, and Suzanne Agnew, 57, each pleaded guilty to tampering with a deceased human body and identity theft in connection with the death of James O’Neill. …

O’Neill died in December 2023 at the Lakewood home he shared with the Agnews. Prosecutors said the couple did not report his death and concealed his body inside a plastic mattress secured with tape. Investigators found his remains beneath a deflated air mattress during a search of the home on July 3, 2025.

Prosecutors said the couple impersonated O’Neill in phone calls and emails, accessed Social Security payments deposited into his account and used his debit card to make purchases. …

Dudek Won’t Shut Up

    Leland Dudek continues to talk with news media outlets trying to tell his story of how things went during his brief tenure as Acting Social Security Commissioner at the beginning of the current Trump Administration. Here’s his latest. 

     He needs to move on. He’s not going to convince the people interested in the story.

     Has the guy found a new job?

Resumption Of Wage Garnishment

      From an update to POMS, Social Security’s main manual:

The Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA) of 1996 authorizes federal agencies to administratively garnish up to 15 percent of a delinquent debtor’s disposable pay without obtaining a court order. In March 2020, the Social Security Administration (SSA) suspended administrative wage garnishment (AWG) because of the economic hardships associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With this release, SSA will resume issuing AWG packages to the employers of eligible debtors. These packages direct employers to withhold a portion of an employee’s wages to recover delinquent debts. The release also includes system and program enhancements that require corresponding updates to SSA policies and procedures. 

This notice is for SSI.  There’s a corresponding update for Title II benefits. 

     These also remove a ten year limitation on AWG.

      Interesting that this comes out just after the election. Must be a coincidence.