I've looked at disability payments - they're nothing to write home about.

it took me over 5 yrs for my case to be settled the Federal Court overruled the AJ decision on appeals twice and ordered him to re-examine the evidence.

It sure seems strange given the higher level of scrutiny of a claimant when it heads in for a hearing. By this time its been reviewed and investigated and even the ALJ can produce experts to testify on the claims made.

Its always been deny, deny again and deny some more.

from the experiences of some folks I know about.

back? This is nuts!

"The total program cost including development, engineering and testing, averaged $2.1 billion per aircraft in 1997."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit

for putting it in perspective for me.

Usually when errors are made, they fall into a 50/50 category. That is 50% should have been approved and were NOT and 50% should have been disapproved and were approved (this was the kind of error found). The fact that they only found those that were approved and should have been denied and not the other way around makes me very suspicious about this Social Security's office of inspector general.

I've seen people without legs denied disability. I have a tough time believing they only found one kind of error.

the judges who have unusually high denial rates?

http://www.ssa.gov/appeals/DataSets/03_ALJ_Disposition_Data.html

Paul Armstrong,
LR BaileySmith,
Janice Williams Barnes,
Susan Giuffre

The national average of people who win a social security hearing if they go before an ALJ is about 60%. This makes sense as a lot of people who wouldn't win drop out as the process moves forward---

Apply--if denied and appeal
Reconsideration (another paper review)--if denied and appeal (only a small number win here_
Administrative hearing--if denied (about 60% win here)
Review by Appeals council--if denied appeal
Federal District Court

And the people that need the help the most will even have a harder/longer approval process to go through.