DISABILITY SURVIVAL GUIDE: NORTH ALABAMA EDITION

I represented a 51 year-old woman at a Social Security disability hearing.  Upon examination by the administrative law judge (ALJ), the lady testified to herniated discs in her neck and back and swelling in her lower extremities that prevent long term standing or walking.   The judge felt that my client would be limited to sedentary work requiring sitting up to 6 hours per day but requiring no more than 2 hours per day of standing and/or walking.  In other words, he restricted her to sedentary work. The judge asked the government's vocational expert (VE) if any jobs existed in the US economy that my client could still perform.  Of course, the VE found 3 jobs, as examples--all at the Sedentary exertion level and with an SVP of 2--unskilled.   One of those jobs was that of a   Document preparer, microfilming, DOT Code 249.587-018.  The expert testified that there are approximately 63,000 of those jobs  in the US economy. In the federal di...

  SOCIAL SECURITY & OUTDATED JOB DATA Before approving your disability claim, Social Security must decide whether there are any jobs in America that you might still be able to perform. To get job information, Social Security relies on The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and other sources. At the final decision-making step, Social Security must decide whether the claimant can perform even unskilled sedentary or "sit-down" type of work.  If so, they must deny the claim. This is where it gets really frustrating.  There are several  sedentary (sit-down) jobs in the DOT that no longer exist. The DOT was written in the 1930s during the Great Depression.  It was last updated around 1990.  So, at best, it is almost more than 30 years out of date. Here is an example of a job in the DOT that no longer exists: Telegraph-service rater, DOT Code 214.587-010.  It's a real job according to the DOT. However, the last telegraph ...