One judge green-lit payments in 95% of 1,268 cases, despite Social Security having ruled that the people were not disabled.
Guess what: Democrats wailing about DOGE and Elon Musk “inventing” fake fraud in Social Security are at best crazy and at worst are corrupt. Facts prove the DOGE claims are legitimate: especially regarding Social Security Disability payments.
A Daily Wire analysis found that dozens of administrative law judges grant disability payments to almost everyone who appears before them, overriding Social Security staff who determined the people were not entitled to payments.
One of the Social Security Administration’s “regional chief administrative law judges,” Jennifer M. Horne, who leads the San Francisco hearing office, ruled in every case she heard last year that the claimant should be granted disability payments, even though in each case, two previous examinations had found the claimant should be denied. Ronald Herman, hearing cases outside of Detroit, green lit payments in 95% of the 1,268 cases he heard. Jan Leventer, hearing cases in Queens and Detroit, approved 94% of 2,159 cases, potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Such rulings have steered billions of dollars in payments to people who may not deserve them, adding to the impression that disability is sometimes abused as a shadow welfare program. Targeting abuse in Social Security’s disability program, which has a history of fraud, provides an opportunity for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut waste from the “non-discretionary” funding that comprises the bulk of the federal budget.
“It’s all a political bent,” a lawyer who represents disability-seekers at the hearings, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Daily Wire. “If [the judge is] a person that says ‘this is a social contract that we make with people,’ if [the claimant says] they’re disabled, then they are. If they’re a person who believes everyone’s a liar and a cheat, then it’s single digits.”
“I don’t think there’s any real lawyering to it. The game is to get as many hearings as I can because 50% are getting approved no matter what if I just show up,” he added. “I’ve had people with cancer not get approved, and people with skin rashes get approved. I can’t predict it anymore.”
One Washington, D.C.-area administrative law judge, who is a white Bernie Sanders supporter, was overheard complaining that many of his peers viewed their job as a way to steer government checks to minorities, regardless of the facts.
Social Security staff determine whether someone is entitled to disability payments, and claimants can appeal to staff for a “redetermination” if they are rejected. If that panel also concludes that they are not disabled, they can appeal again to an administrative law judge.
Outcomes in those proceedings largely depend on which judge the applicant gets. Even though one might assume that they would defer to the judgement of Social Security experts, 85 judges overturned Social Security rulings that a person was not disabled more than 80% of the time.
Far fewer judges erred on the side of stinginess. Only 16 judges upheld the staff’s determination more than 80% of the time, according to 2024 data. In all, administrative law judges heard 2.2 million disability cases in 2024 and overturned the non-disabled ruling in 58% of them. In October, 26 administrative law judges, hearing 197 cases between them, ruled favorably to the disability-seeker in every single case.
Administrative law judges (ALJ) are not members of the judicial branch, but rather executive branch employees who are represented by a “union for judges,” the Association of Administration Law Judges (AALJ). The AALJ’s leaders were among the most activist judges. Its president, Sommattie Ramrup, approved 94% of the cases she heard in New York. Its secretary, Kimberly Schiro, ranked 49th among the 1,220 ALJs at 85%, and its treasurer, JoErin O’Leary, overrode staff to approve payments 74% of the time.
The AALJ, whose members make at least $185,000 a year, sued DOGE for accessing federal employee records, with Ramrup filing an affidavit that said, “Members of AALJ and I also fear that DOGE could use improperly disclosed records to retaliate against us.” She did not return a request for comment.
Social Security runs two disability programs: one, called Social Security Disability Insurance, for those who have worked in the past and now find themselves unable to work — pays out roughly $150 billion a year in benefits. The other, called Supplemental Security Income, is for those who have never worked and paid out about $54 billion in 2023.
Both programs, especially the latter, have been used as a shadow form of welfare for decades. In some Appalachian counties, more than a quarter of the population was on disability. In inner cities, unemployed individuals feign mental conditions like depression to get government checks that last a lot longer than welfare, which is limited to five years.
Disability judges with astronomically high approval ratings in 2024 include:
- Jennifer M Horne (San Francisco regional chief): approved 100% of 9 cases.
- Jose Perez-Gonzalez (Ft. Lauderdale): approved 100% of 9 cases
- Michael L Brownfield (Chattanooga): approved 95% of 639 cases
- Ronald Herman (Oak Park): approved 95% of 1,268 cases
- Jan Leventer (Queens/Detroit): approved 94% of 2,159 cases
- Sommattie Ramrup (New York): approved 94% of 65 cases
- Margo Stone (Fayetteville, NC): approved 92% of 2,007 cases
- Gloria W Green (FL/NC/SC): approved 92% of 1,971 cases
- Jeffrey Hatfield (Honolulu): approved 91% of 2,173 cases
- D.B. Stalley (Mobile): approved 91% of 1,277 cases
- Matthew Malfa (Manchester): approved 91% of 1,608 cases
- Randall D. Huggins (Charlotte/Tampa): approved 91% of 1,910 cases
- William Wallis (St. Louis): approved 91% of 2,170 cases
The judges could not be reached for comment.
Source: Daily Wire analysis of calendar year 2024 disability determinations.
A ruling on whether someone is entitled to disability depends not just on medical facts, but also a judge’s view of the economy and an individual’s potential to adapt. If a construction worker develops a back problem, the judge must determine whether there are sedentary jobs available in the United States, and whether he’d be capable of getting hired into one. Social Security disability is a government program that is separate from workers’ compensation, which covers injuries on the job.
In 2013, then-Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) noted that administrative law judge hearings were one-sided affairs where applicants pleaded their case without anyone representing the taxpayer.
“One simple reform that would make a big difference is including a professional from the SSA to represent the government (and ultimately, the American taxpayer) in decisions made by ALJs,” he said. “Some claimant attorneys withhold evidence from the [judge].”
Although there is no suggestion that the unusual patterns by the judges are due to fraud, Coburn revealed that high patterns of disability in some rural areas were because of unscrupulous lawyers and medical professionals who, for a fee, would help anyone present as disabled —with at least one lawyer also paying off judges to secure disability determinations.
One criminal proceeding demonstrated how much money one judge with a high approval rate steers. In 2017, former administrative law judge David Black Daugherty, who heard cases in West Virginia, was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution of $93 million after he single-handedly doled out more than half a billion dollars in disability payments by giving favorable rulings in 3,149 cases in exchange for $609,000 in bribes.
The bribes came from lawyer Eric Conn, who worked with psychologist Alfred Adkins to construct a disability paper mill. Conn collected $7 million in legal fees from clients. He fled the country after pleading guilty and, in 2018, was sentenced to prison after being apprehended in Honduras. A second administrative law judge, Charlie Paul Andrus, fired a whistleblower to conceal the scheme.
About 10% of an employee’s pay is diverted to Social Security’s retirement fund, and another 2% to its disability fund. According to the 2024 annual trustee report, Social Security is projected to be depleted of sufficient funding in eight years and will be unable to pay full retirement benefits beginning in 2033 for many Americans. Terminating disability judges with abnormal records, or eliminating the 1,200-judge appeal layer entirely, could cut down on dubious disability and allow more resources to be shifted to the retirement side.
