Social Security says it's handling disability claims better. But it may just be pushing more people away.

By Jessica Hall

The rate of denials has increased in disability cases, research shows

The Social Security Administration handles benefits for more than 75 million Americans.

Numbers, they say, don't lie. But they may not tell the full story.

The Social Security Administration recently touted improvements in its performance in handling disability cases, but some of those gains may have come at the cost of people with disabilities getting rushed through the process and losing out on benefits they are entitled to, analysts said.

The SSA, which handles benefits for more than 75 million retirees, people with disabilities and dependents, said it made sweeping productivity gains. The agency said it had reduced the initial disability claims backlog by over 30% from a high of nearly 1.3 million in 2024 to 853,000 currently. The SSA also said it had cut disability-hearing wait times by more than 90 days, to 266 days - a historic low.

"They chose their metrics very carefully. They cherry-pick," said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank. "You have to take their press releases with a grain of salt."

The SSA currently does not provide the same detailed, real-time metrics as it did in the past, providing only snapshots of its performance instead of running updated tabulations of caseloads, timings and backlogs, analysts said.

The initial disability-claims backlog - meaning the delay in first-time applications - is still higher than during the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting years of underfunding and understaffing at the agency, according to research from the Urban Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on domestic economic and social issues.

What looks like improvements in the backlog appear to have come from a decrease in new disability claims and an increased rate of initial denials, according to the Urban Institute.

"Fewer new claims and more denials could mean fewer people need supports. On the other hand, it could mean people with disabilities are facing more barriers to applying for benefits," the Urban Institute said.

The increased rate of denials comes as the SSA has gone through a period of upheaval in the past 18 months, including new leadership, the loss of more than 7,000 jobs, or 12% of its workforce, and new procedures and policies.

Social Security is facing a financial crisis and will hit insolvency in 2032. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is financed through payroll and self-employment taxes on earnings, which are placed into a dedicated Disability Insurance Trust Fund. That fund's reserves are projected to remain positive for the 75-year period recently reviewed by Social Security's trustees.

"The number of people applying for Social Security disability has dropped dramatically. People have heard that it's so difficult to get benefits that they're discouraged from applying. With fewer people applying, of course the backlog number would go down," said Nancy Altman, president of advocacy group Social Security Works.

"Two-thirds of people who apply get denied, and that rate has gone up under this administration," Altman said. "It doesn't take as long to make a denial as it does to approve an application. The government is supposed to be assisting people, but they're looking for any reason to deny benefits."

Social Security has one of the strictest measures of disability. The agency requires a condition that is expected to result in death, or is expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months. Last year, the SSA added 13 ailments to its compassionate allowance list of conditions that are so severe they automatically meet Social Security's strict definition of disability.

Disability applications dropped 7% in fiscal year 2025, compared with fiscal year 2024, according to the Urban Institute. The SSA processed 8% more initial disability claims in 2025. Yet, over the same period, the share of claims the SSA approved fell to 36% in fiscal year 2025 from 38.7% in fiscal year 2024.

The drop in the approval rate means that while the number of approved claims remained flat from 2024 to 2025, denials account for the entire increase in the total number of decisions, the Urban Institute said.

The Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Martin O'Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner under the Biden administration, said the staffing issues and long wait times may discourage people from applying. But the increase in the denial rate is worrisome.

"If you make it impossible to get into a field office, there's fewer people applying. When you make it harder to get through on the 800-number, have long wait times on the phone and long waits to get an appointment, people give up. More people die when the wait time is that long," O'Malley said.

The media coverage of problems at the SSA and reports of long wait times may exacerbate the problem.

"When people apply, they've been in a disability for a while. They're already taking a financial hit and they're trying to get benefits. Three out of four times it's a no. And it takes six months just to get a decision. That discourages people from even applying," Romig said.

-Jessica Hall

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07-14-26 1000ET