DOT Replacement Not Available In Full Until 2016

     One important question about Social Security's effort to develop a replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles is when the work will be completed. Here is something of an answer. This is from the transcript of the July 27, 2011 teleconference meeting of Social Security's Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (pages 29-30)

This is Andy Wakshul [Panel Member]. I have a question. As I look at the Plan I was impressed certainly with the breadth and the scope of it, and how detailed it was. But I notice that the timeline extends out pretty far, five years at the bottom of the chart, and that's only for data collection. Do you have an idea when this will be an instrument that adjudicators will be able to use in making disability determination? It's got to be after 2016.

MS. KARMAN [Director]: This is Sylvia. We anticipate that through a program evaluation and any information that we have collected through 2016 if, in fact, we are targeting, for example, occupations that are frequently presented to us in claimant's vocational work histories, there may be the possibility that the Agency would be in a position to begin using that  information for those areas of work.