DOES THE GOVERNMENT PRESSURE JUDGES TO DENY?
No one I know denies that the government pressures judges to deny Social Security disability claims. This pressure, I think, is the result of two lines of thinking in 2020:
1. The Social Security trust fund is going broke and soon won't be able to pay all the benefits that have been awarded;
2. It's too easy to get disability benefits and people are cheating and abusing the system.
Nationwide, judges pay only about 40 percent of disability claims that come before them. That rate has been falling for the last 5 years. However, the award rate from one judge to another varies widely. In the same office, one judge may pay 20 percent of the cases heard while a judge down the hall may pay 60 percent.
Over the last three years or so, the government has been trying to level out the award rates. They would like all judges to get in line so their award rates look pretty much alike.
Stated another way, the government wants every judge to deny about 60 percent of all disability claims that come before them.
The difference between the attitudes of judges, and the way they handle cases, is obvious. You occasionally get a judge who comes across as: I'm not about to pay your claim if I can find any way around it. And of course they can nearly always find some way not to pay.
Let's be honest. Sometimes, a claim should not be paid. Maybe the medical evidence is just not there to prove disability. Maybe the claimant really can adjust to some other type of work. Perhaps the insured status expired long before the disability began. We expect these claims not to be paid.
But when there is a strong claim, the fact remains that some judges will pay it and others won't. And the government has done nothing I can think of over the last decade to make benefits easier to get or claims easier to win. They've done many things to make it harder.
The fact that the government is trying hard to keep new claimants off of disability benefits should not be lost on you. It will be a battle.
Also, you should learn something about the hearing process before you decide if you want representation. What is the process like? What is your burden of proof? What will you be expected to know? What matters and what doesn't matter? What are your odds of effectively representing yourself and winning? Also, where does it leave you if you gamble on doing-it-yourself and lose?
1. The Social Security trust fund is going broke and soon won't be able to pay all the benefits that have been awarded;
2. It's too easy to get disability benefits and people are cheating and abusing the system.
Nationwide, judges pay only about 40 percent of disability claims that come before them. That rate has been falling for the last 5 years. However, the award rate from one judge to another varies widely. In the same office, one judge may pay 20 percent of the cases heard while a judge down the hall may pay 60 percent.
Over the last three years or so, the government has been trying to level out the award rates. They would like all judges to get in line so their award rates look pretty much alike.
Stated another way, the government wants every judge to deny about 60 percent of all disability claims that come before them.
The difference between the attitudes of judges, and the way they handle cases, is obvious. You occasionally get a judge who comes across as: I'm not about to pay your claim if I can find any way around it. And of course they can nearly always find some way not to pay.
Let's be honest. Sometimes, a claim should not be paid. Maybe the medical evidence is just not there to prove disability. Maybe the claimant really can adjust to some other type of work. Perhaps the insured status expired long before the disability began. We expect these claims not to be paid.
But when there is a strong claim, the fact remains that some judges will pay it and others won't. And the government has done nothing I can think of over the last decade to make benefits easier to get or claims easier to win. They've done many things to make it harder.
The fact that the government is trying hard to keep new claimants off of disability benefits should not be lost on you. It will be a battle.
Also, you should learn something about the hearing process before you decide if you want representation. What is the process like? What is your burden of proof? What will you be expected to know? What matters and what doesn't matter? What are your odds of effectively representing yourself and winning? Also, where does it leave you if you gamble on doing-it-yourself and lose?
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