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WHY IS THERE A VOCATIONAL WITNESS AT SOCIAL SECURITY HEARINGS?

Social Security will call a vocational witness to attend every hearing for an adult claimant.  The vocational witness (sometimes called a "vocational expert") is paid by the Social Security Administration but is supposed to be a neutral witness--neither advocating for or opposing the claimant.  

The vocational witness (VW) will play a vital role in deciding whether you receive benefits.

 The VW has several purposes at hearings:

1.  Classify all of the claimant's Past Relevant Work (PRW).  PRW includes all the full-time jobs the claimant has held for the past 15 years.  These jobs will be described in detail to the VW.  He/she will then classify them in two ways:

  • Each job's exertion level (sedentary, light, medium, heavy or very heavy)
  • Each job s skill level (unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled)

2.  Answer the judge's questions about how various impairments effect the ability to perform various types of work.  Using these answer, the judge will determine whether the claimant can perform any Past Relevant Work, or any other work which exists in significant numbers in the national economy.

Ideally, the vocational witness will testify that:

a)  the claimant cannot perform any of his/her past relevant work, and

b)  the claimant cannot perform any other work which exists in the national economy

If both of these are established, then the claimant should be found disabled and awarded benefits.

For claimants under the age of 50, there is a real lurking danger.  The VW may find that claimant cannot perform any past work - but can perform other work.  For example, the claimant cannot perform medium or light work, but would be able to perform sedentary unskilled work, such as     

  1. inspector
  2. garment tagger
  3. envelope addresser

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