OIDAP To End

      From an e-mail sent out by Mary Barros-Bailey, Chair of Social Security's Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (OIDAP), which has been working on creating a successor to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT):

After over three years serving as the Chair to the Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (OIDAP), this will be my last Message from the Chair.  On 21 May 2012, the Social Security Administration (SSA) decided that because of fiscal issues associated with the current Federal financial crisis, they would not extend the OIDAP charter beyond its expiration in July.  We are the last Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) panel at SSA at this time.

     Occupational information is crucial in disability determination under the Social Security Act. Social Security's effort to create a new occupational information system is going forward full speed ahead. The only thing that is happening is that Social Security is dropping the pretense that there is anything independent about this. Abolishing OIDAP will make it even more difficult for the occupational information system it develops to be seen as credible by the courts, Congress and the public. It's hard for me to imagine Social Security submitting its occupational information system to independent review.