... [F]rom 2003-2018, cognitive job demands increased from an average level of 2.63 to 2.90 (+9.3 percent), psychomotor demands decreased from 1.75 to 1.59 (-9.1 percent), physical demands decreased from 1.37 to 1.18 (-13.8 percent) and sensory demands increased from 1.72 to 1.88 (+8.5 percent). .
The increase in cognitive job demands ... is mostly concentrated among low-skill jobs, or those prevalent among individuals with less than a college degree. In contrast, the decrease in physical job demands is concentrated among high-skill jobs, or those prevalent among individuals with at least a college degree. These results suggest low-education workers have been penalized as their jobs have become more cognitively demanding without any alleviation of the physical burden of performing these jobs. ...
Like I've been saying, it's nuts to talk about increasing the age categories in the grid regulations. It's become harder for individuals with low educational levels who have exertional limitations to find jobs they can do. What had been low skill jobs have remained just as strenuous while becoming more skilled. It's the high skill jobs that have become physically easier, not low skill jobs.
In all likelihood, this is why Social Security keeps delaying introduction of a new occupational information system. They can't find a way to massage the data to come up with unskilled sedentary jobs. Their should be an Inspector General investigation of why Social Security's occupational information system keeps getting delayed.
The other fiction this site never mentions is that someone born since the late 60s and who graduated high school or has some college is incapable of finding or obtaining a call center job or other semiskilled sedentary SVP 3 or 4 job. The requirement that only unskilled jobs can be relied upon at step 5 (absent a cognitive limitation) in the world of smartphones for people who have spent the majority of their life in front of a computer should be updated to reflect the modern world.
ReplyDeleteThe ALJs ask the VEs if the information they provided is consistent with the DOT. They say yes without admitting that the many of the jobs they are citing are no longer performed in the same way as they are described in the DOT. The whole VE thing is really just a game, very little reality there.
ReplyDeleteVE's do need to have a conference or revise their data. I'm tired of hearing about jobs that haven't been updated since 1977. There just aren't any silver wrappers around anymore. The pandemic has also changed or eliminated some jobs.
ReplyDelete@8:14
ReplyDeleteThat's generally not the focus of the discussion here because the ability to FIND or OBTAIN a job is irrelevant under the regulations. The question is whether the claimant can PERFORM the job.
As to the requirement that only unskilled jobs can be relied upon at step 5, that was SSA's call when they publishing the medical-vocational rules as explained in SSR 83-10. It's a shortcut meant to allow SSA to not pay for VEs in every claim, and instead rule favorably or unfavorably based on publicly available data.
Finally, in regard to call center jobs being misclassified as semi-skilled or skilled jobs on the basis that people generally use smartphones, I'm not sure if you have worked in a call center, but they don't generally use smartphones, they use proprietary, complicated software and landline phones to manage workers who are expected to meet productivity goals, to a degree not generally expected when a private individual calls someone on their personal smartphone. Use of the software, hardware, and skills necessary to satisfy those goals (upselling, IT Q&A, data entry, etc.) are what the worker is expected to learn, which is what the skill levels are addressing, not the ability to use a smartphone.
@10:16
ReplyDeleteYou're right. It's whether someone can perform work, so strike "finding and obtaining," replace with performing, and the point remains the same. The 50yo of 1981 or 1983 would not be able to perform sedentary work available in the world at that time, but someone born in 1970 will likely be able to perform the sedentary, semiskilled work available now.
The point about smart phones is not that they're required to do a call center job. It's that people who have no difficulty using smart phones, computers, smart TVs, etc are not going to have difficulty performing the mental requirements of a call center job or learning how to use the specific software. It's probably why people without a work history or even a high school education are able to do these jobs and readily hired for the jobs. Customer service skills are the only "skills" most people under 55 need, and many employers allow on-the-job training to acquire those.
And "complicated" software? Give me a break. It's only complicated if you've never used a computer before. Novel is not the same as complicated.
Not hearing the same complaints about raising the retirement age. Funny how that works, guess nobody makes money from that.
ReplyDelete@10:00 a.m.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It's an egregious and widely perpetrated injustice at the ALJ level that almost all ALJs and VE's fail or refuse to address obsolescence of certain DOT job descriptions. DOT descriptions for jobs like addresser, silver wrapper, call-out operator, and surveillance system monitor are obviously obsolete, yet it is commonplace for VEs to cite them and ALJs to accept them as described in the DOT, and then to use them to deny claims. Skilled counsel can make a record of such errors but often must go to Federal Court to win. Unrepresented claimants are out of luck, and likely to lose based on an inaccurate, misrepresented and obsolete job descriptions. SSA should put out a list of obviously obsolete DOT job descriptions and forbid their use to deny claims without competent evidence of how the jobs are performed now.
@12:45
ReplyDelete10:16 here. If SSA wants to raise the level from unskilled to semiskilled, or even skilled, they can do that. They haven't. As to whether people can be readily hired, with no work history and only a high school education as call center workers and that suggests the work is unskilled, no. Again, it is not a matter of being hired, it is a matter of performance.
To quote the DOT, "Specific Vocational Preparation is defined as the amount of lapsed time required by a typical worker to learn the techniques, acquire the information, and develop the facility needed for average performance in a specific job-worker situation. " Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) is defined in distinct levels. SVP 1 is a short demonstration and SVP 2 is up to one month. SVP 1 and 2 is "unskilled" work. Therefore, the question is whether the average individual working at a call center could perform to at least an average degree within one month of starting employment. If not, then the job is more than SVP 2. Whether the hypothetical, smartphone-savvy, high school educated, no-work-history new hire would be of average quality after only a month of work? I would doubt it. Maybe after a few months, maybe 3 months (i.e. SVP 3 (i.e. semiskilled)).
Oh, and as to the "complicated" software, I'll go with your word, novel. I just meant that it would need to be something that was learned. Not that it would be particularly difficult to learn.
Most VEs only compare the ALJs hypothetical question to the decades-old job information listed in the DOT. You have to drag them kicking and screaming to even consider more up to date information in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (which the regs take notice of) or other USDOL BLS sources to see how jobs may have changed since the DOT last updated them. The system is broke in ways that are harming disability claimants. SSA could easily fix at least some of the problem by identifying and acknowledging obsolete DOT job descriptions, but it refuses to do so.
ReplyDeleteAt least the ALJ in one of my hearings this year had the VE give the job numbers of some obsolete jobs that my claimant could do with his limitations and decided there were not significant numbers of jobs he could perform in the national economy. We know finding and getting the job has nothing to do with disability, but still, it's not fair to deny someone because they can do order calling when there is no order calling to do.
ReplyDeleteI cannot comment on the SS point of view, but the fact is as we move further into a high tech world, even low skilled jobs will need some technological know-how.
ReplyDeleteWe have gone a long way from cops walking the beat and using a callbox to having a PC in each cruiser.
Everything is high tech now and if you are from the older generation and did not grow up with it, then it may be a big challenge.