According to data released for the second quarter of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) fiscal year (FY) ending March 31, 2014, hearings before administrative law judges (ALJ) are taking longer to process and their backlog continues to grow. This reverses recent gains the SSA has achieved in speeding up the process for obtaining a hearing decision.
They now report hearings awarded through March took an average of 405 days for a decision, a 23 day increase from FY 2013 (382 days), and 52 day jump from FY 2012 (353 days). In addition, the total number of hearings pending also increased again this quarter to 928,203 claims, up 9.5 percent from the end of FY 2013 when 847,984 hearings were pending.
