Unattainable goals do not create superhuman performance. They create triage, delays, errors, burnout—and predictable harm to the American people.
When leadership demands outcomes that staffing, time, training, and technology cannot produce, employees do not become superhuman. The unfinished work simply moves downstream—until a human being absorbs the damage.
The backlog climbed for six straight years, passed one million, peaked in 2016, then fell sharply. In 2025 it rose again—from 261,574 to 279,857 pending hearing requests.
Official SSA administrative data. Hover or tap a point for the exact value.
SSA's average hearing-decision time rose from 353 days in 2012 to 605 days in 2017. It improved to 284 days in 2025, but still missed the revised 280-day goal.
The 2013 value is the September-only measure reported in SSA's FY 2016 performance report.
SSA was still a top-10 large federal agency workplace through 2016. By 2023 it ranked last among 17 large agencies. In 2024 it ranked last again—18th of 18.
A lower score indicates a worse employee experience. The rankings are based primarily on the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.
SSA's 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey said workload management—along with recognition, empowerment, involvement, and innovation—had among the lowest positive-response rates. That is not evidence that employees stopped caring. It is evidence that caring employees were being asked to absorb an impossible equation.
Sixteen years of pending cases, wait times, missed goals, corrections, and the human meaning behind the curve.
Detailed pageHow SSA moved from a top-10 workplace to last among large agencies—and why impossible workloads predictably become public-service failures.