Social Security News has published the allowance and denial rates for Social Security disability claims (including SSI and concurrent claims) for fiscal year 2007. You can see the state by state breakdown here and here. These statistics are remarkable. As Charles Hall says in his post, note the disparities in the allowance/denial rates among the states.
For Maine, 63.8% of initial claims were denied in 2007. That’s almost 2 out of 3. Of the denied claims that were appealed, 82.1% were denied again on reconsideration. That’s almost 5 out of 6.
For New Hampshire, 44.8% of the initial claims were denied. New Hampshire is one of the ten states where initial denials are appealed directly to the (ALJ) hearing level, without a reconsideration. You can read more about the New Hampshire disability claim process here.