A national improvement with a concentrated source
The number of Social Security disability reconsiderations awaiting decisions fell by 18.7% over the year ending in August 2026, but the improvement was concentrated in a handful of processing agencies. Our analysis of the agency’s September 29 data release finds that reductions in Florida and Texas alone accounted for 79.8% of the net national decline. Meanwhile, 30 of the 50 state agencies had more reconsiderations pending than a year earlier.
The national total fell from 371,801 pending reconsiderations in August 2025 to 302,268 in August 2026, a decline of 69,533. Florida’s queue fell by 31,848 and Texas’s by 23,656. Their combined reduction of 55,504 left the other processing units accounting for a net reduction of 14,029. That is a contribution to the change in the pending inventory, not a count of decisions those two agencies issued.
A reconsideration is the first administrative appeal of an initial disability determination. The workload file makes it possible to examine that stage separately from initial claims and administrative-law-judge hearings. Combining all of those stages into a single claim that disability waiting has improved would hide substantial differences in where work remains.
| Processing agency | August 2025 | August 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 43,868 | 12,020 | −31,848 |
| Texas | 34,777 | 11,121 | −23,656 |
| California | 59,211 | 57,821 | −1,390 |
| New York | 7,896 | 12,702 | +4,806 |
| National: all 57 provided units | 371,801 | 302,268 | −69,533 |
California’s queue barely moved as the national total fell
California had 57,821 reconsiderations pending in August 2026, the largest processing-agency total in the file and 19.1% of the national total. Its queue fell by 1,390, or 2.3%, from the prior August—much less than the national percentage decline. Georgia had the second-largest remaining queue, 20,952, despite a substantial reduction from 37,076 a year earlier.
New York illustrates the opposite direction: pending reconsiderations rose from 7,896 to 12,702, an increase of 4,806. The count of state agencies with increases is not weighted by size. Thirty rising queues can coexist with a falling national total because sufficiently large reductions elsewhere outweigh them. The dataset therefore supports both the national improvement and the finding that it was not shared across most state processing agencies.
These figures do not rank the experience of residents in those states. SSA’s documentation warns that a state code identifies the agency processing the claim, not necessarily the applicant’s home. Cases can move between states or to assistance units as SSA balances work. A smaller queue may reflect transfers as well as completed work; a larger one may reflect an agency accepting work from elsewhere. The public aggregate file cannot separate those mechanisms for the changes reported here.
Initial claims show a different pattern
The pending initial-claim total changed much less over the same year: 905,678 in August 2025 versus 898,262 in August 2026, down 7,416, or 0.8%. Within 2026, the trajectory turned upward. After a February reading of 827,829, the total increased in every following month through August, adding 70,433 pending claims, or 8.5%, across that interval.
The longer comparison still shows improvement. The August 2024 initial-claim total was 1,197,990, well above the 898,262 remaining two years later. The more recent increase does not erase that reduction. It does mean that a statement about progress from the 2024 peak answers a different question from whether the queue is continuing to shrink now.
SSA’s performance page, updated October 1, says initial decisions are being issued an average of 29 days faster than in August 2025. A faster average for cases completed and a recently growing inventory of pending cases are not inherently inconsistent. Processing time measures the cases that reached a decision; the pending count measures work still in the system. Changes in arrivals, case mix and the age of completed cases can affect those measures differently. The workload file alone cannot establish the cause.
What the records make visible—and what applicants can check
SSA has also announced new online tools for disability hearings and appeals. Its July 21 release describes status updates, additional digital notices and online submissions for treatment, medication and work-history forms. The agency says those tools should speed information exchange and reduce outgoing calls by hearing offices. They concern later adjudication services and should not be treated as a demonstrated explanation for reductions in state-agency reconsideration queues. SSA says paper notices continue to be mailed.
For this examination, we summed the two pending-count fields across all 57 processing-unit rows supplied for each month and matched identical state codes between the two August snapshots. The national sum includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the federal and extended-service units provided in the file. The 30-of-50 comparison uses only the 50 state agencies. Concurrent SSDI-and-SSI claims are already included in the all-claims fields; adding the program breakouts again would double-count them.
The file’s latest reporting date is August 28, 2026, because SSA’s administrative reporting months normally end on the last Friday. These are pending-claim counts, not a finding that every case is overdue or a prediction of any applicant’s remaining wait. The concentration nevertheless provides a concrete oversight test: continued national improvement should be examined alongside where the pending work sits, how transfers change the picture and whether the recent rise in initial claims persists.
Sources and further reading
SSA performance page, updated October 1, 2026; August 2026 disability statements ↗
SSA July 21, 2026 announcement of online disability hearing/appeal tools ↗