Social Security Administrative Law Judge approval rates averaged around 58% nationally in the most recent full fiscal year of published data, but that headline number hides a wide spread: individual judges approve fewer than 30% of claims at the low end and well over 70% at the high end.1Social Security Administration. ALJ Disposition Data The judge assigned to your case, and the hearing office that judge sits in, can shift your odds by a meaningful margin.
What an Approval Rate Actually Measures
The Social Security Administration calls it an “allowance rate.” It’s the number of favorable decisions a judge issued during a fiscal year divided by the total number of decisions that judge made in the same period.2Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration. Administrative Law Judges with the Highest and Lowest Allowance Rates Favorable decisions include both fully favorable outcomes (the judge accepts the disability onset date you claimed) and partially favorable ones (the judge finds you disabled but sets a later onset date or awards benefits for a closed past period only).
Dismissals are left out of both sides of the equation. A dismissal ends a case without any ruling on the medical evidence, usually because the claimant failed to appear, withdrew the request, or filed the hearing request more than 60 days after reconsideration without good cause. Including dismissals would distort how a judge actually rules on the merits, so the SSA excludes them.2Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration. Administrative Law Judges with the Highest and Lowest Allowance Rates
The math is straightforward. A judge who decided 200 cases and issued 120 favorable outcomes carries a 60% approval rate for that period. The SSA reports these figures for every sitting ALJ on both a monthly and annual basis, with annual reports covering the federal fiscal year that runs from October through September.3Social Security Administration. Financial Data for a Selected Time Period
How Much Judges and Offices Vary
Two judges sitting in the same hearing office can post approval rates 20 or 30 percentage points apart. That reflects real differences in how individual judges weigh medical evidence, evaluate credibility, and exercise the discretion built into the disability framework at nearly every step. The SSA organizes its hearing offices into ten regions, and rates vary between regions, between offices within a region, and between judges within a single office.4Social Security Administration. Privacy Program
Processing time is the other axis of variation. In fiscal year 2025, the fastest offices resolved hearings in roughly 200 days while the slowest exceeded 400.5Social Security Administration. OHO Hearing Office Workload Data As of February 2026, the national average processing time was 268 days, down slightly from 277 days a year earlier, even as pending cases climbed from about 272,000 to 344,000.6Social Security Administration. Social Security Performance The office that handles your case is set by where you live, and you generally cannot transfer your case elsewhere to find a faster docket or a more favorable judge.
How to Look Up Your Judge’s Numbers
The SSA publishes ALJ disposition data directly on its website in downloadable spreadsheets organized by fiscal year.1Social Security Administration. ALJ Disposition Data The most recent full-year report covers FY 2025 (September 2024 through September 2025), and monthly updates for FY 2026 appear as the year progresses.7Social Security Administration. Archived Public Data Files
Each spreadsheet lists judges alphabetically within their hearing office. The columns show total dispositions, total decisions, allowances, and denials. Divide allowances by total decisions to get the approval rate. A few habits make the data more useful:
- Start with the hearing office listed on your hearing notice. Search for that office name in the spreadsheet before looking for individual judges.
- Read the whole office, not just one name. If your case hasn’t been assigned yet, or gets reassigned, the range across the office tells you more than a single judge’s number.
- Ignore judges with very few cases. A judge who decided three cases and denied all three shows 0%, but that is statistical noise. Look for judges with at least 50 to 100 decisions before drawing conclusions.
- Compare fiscal years. A single year can be an outlier; checking FY 2024 against FY 2025 shows whether a pattern actually holds.
The SSA also publishes average wait times by hearing office on a separate page, useful for estimating how long your case will take.8Social Security Administration. Average Wait Time Until Hearing Held Report
Can You Request a Different Judge Because of a Low Approval Rate?
No. The SSA has no mechanism for claimants to pick their ALJ or switch to a different one based on approval statistics. Federal regulations do allow you to object if the judge is prejudiced or has a personal interest in your case, and the judge decides whether to withdraw. If the judge declines, you can raise the objection again before the Appeals Council after the decision.9eCFR. 20 CFR 404.940 – Disqualification of the Administrative Law Judge A low approval rate is not a recognized ground for disqualification. The numbers are for preparation, not for judge-shopping.
What the Numbers Can and Cannot Tell You
Approval rates are genuinely useful, but they have limits that catch people off guard. A judge with a 45% rate is not guaranteed to deny your claim, and a judge at 70% is not a sure thing. The rate reflects the mix of cases that judge happened to hear. An office that draws a higher share of claimants with severe, well-documented impairments will naturally show higher rates. A judge working through a backlog of older cases may show a temporary spike or dip that says little about how they’ll evaluate your specific evidence.
The data also gives you a reality check. If the national average sits near 58% and your judge runs at 50%, that’s within the normal range. A judge at 25% is a genuine outlier and worth factoring into your expectations. What the number cannot do is predict the outcome of one hearing, because one hearing is not a statistical event. Your medical records, your testimony, and the vocational evidence do most of the work.
Using the Data With Your Representative
Where the statistics pay off most is in preparation. If your judge has a notably low approval rate, your representative can adjust strategy: front-loading stronger medical evidence, requesting a consultative examination, or submitting a detailed pre-hearing brief that addresses the specific issues that judge tends to scrutinize. If your judge tends to lean heavily on vocational expert testimony, that changes how your representative prepares to cross-examine the expert on job numbers and job descriptions.
Represented claimants historically win approval at rates roughly 15 to 20 percentage points higher than unrepresented claimants. Under the standard fee agreement, the representative receives 25% of your past-due benefits or $9,200, whichever is less, and only if you win.10Social Security Administration. Fee Agreements The SSA withholds that fee from your back pay, so nothing comes out of pocket up front, though you may still owe separately for costs like obtaining medical records.
Pulling your judge’s numbers from the SSA’s public data, reading them alongside the rest of the office, and sharing what you find with your representative turns a raw statistic into a preparation tool. That’s the point of the data. It tells you what kind of hearing to get ready for.