Social Security Administration (SSA) Annual Data for
Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) Payments

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(Updated January 20, 2022)

This data set contains data for fiscal years 2010 onward and is currently available in the following format(s):

CSV

Background

The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. 2412:

• authorizes, under certain circumstances, payment of reasonable attorney fees and expenses to parties who prevail against the United States in a civil action;
• provides that payment of legal fees and other expenses applies only with respect to proceedings in which the party prevails against the agency, and only if the position of the government was not substantially justified; and
• provides that when a representative received fees for the same work under both section 206(b) of the Social Security Act and EAJA, the representative must refund to the claimant the amount of the smaller fee.

A data set containing payment amounts made by the Social Security Administration for court approved EAJA payments for fiscal year data from 2010 onward can be downloaded from the box above.

Data Set Index

Data Set Description

This data set provides dollar amounts for total EAJA payments paid by the agency at the national level from federal fiscal year 2010 onwards.

The data set includes net payments made in each fiscal year. Payments made in the fiscal year are reduced by collections recorded during the year, even when the collection is against a payment from a prior year. Examples of collections include non-negotiated checks and overpayment collections.

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Data Collection Description

When we receive notice that an EAJA payment amount has been approved by the court, our employees record the payment amount in our financial system using specific codes established for EAJA payments. These amounts are sent to the Department of the Treasury for disbursement to the payees.

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Notes

• A Federal Fiscal Year (FY) is the 12-month period from October 1^st through September 30^th. Most years our fiscal year workload reports contain 52 weeks since we include only full weeks, rather than cut off in the middle of a week. Every few years the reporting period is 53 weeks when we apply the end of week cutoff. Fiscal Year 2016 is a 53 week year for our workload reports.

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Data Dictionary

Fiscal Year (FY): The 12-month period from October 1^st through September 30^th.

Total Payments: The court approved EAJA payments for Social Security Administration cases, in dollars.

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