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Social Security Disability (SSD) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claimants who have appeared before an administrative law judge (ALJ) may have to wait up to a year before they receive an actual written decision in their case, even if the judge has indicated at the end of the proceeding that he or she is inclined to award disability benefits. This is not good news, to say the least. Most disability applicants who reach the hearing level of consideration have already spend several months if not years getting to this point: the average wait for a decision on an initial disability application is 3 to 4 months, and the wait for a decision on a reconsideration appeal (a first appeal to the disability determination service agency that must be denied before a claimant can request a hearing) usually takes several months as well. Why does it take so long to receive a judge’s decision in an SSD/SSI matter? Is it a plot to make the claimant wait as long as possible just for the principle of the matter? Is it an attempt to wear the claimant down until he or she just gives up and goes away? Despite all evidence to the contrary, the answer to all of the above is no. The long wait for an answer on disability applications, appeals, and hearing decisions are almost always the result of one (or more) of three factors: 1) The time it takes to gather records or other documentation necessary to make a decision, 2) backlogs in the system (there are more disability applicants today than ever before), and 3) human error (someone in the disability determination process drops the ball). In the case of the ALJ social security disability decision, it’s also important to take in to account that, although it is the judge that decides the case, it is not the judge who actually writes the decision letter. The Social Security Administration has special decision writers hired to do this (this may seem illogical but it’s actually a good thing—imagine how much longer it would take if lone judges had to write all of those decisions without help). The decision writers, like all other disability workers, have an enormous workload to process, and as the number of disability cases filed rises the wait for written decisions will undoubtedly increase. What can you do if you have not received a written decision in after a reasonable amount of time has passed after your disability hearing? The best course of action is to call the hearing office (if you have a disability lawyer he or she can and should make this call) and ask for an update. There is little else you can do, but at least this phone call will rule out the possibility that the hearing office has made a mistake of some type, or that the decision writer has misplaced paperwork needed to write a decision in your case. 
Social Security Disability and SSI Disability Information
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