Lisa Rein at the Washington Post has a long piece out on Social Security’s use of the horribly outdated Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) in making disability determinations. Everyone involved knows the DOT is completely unreliable.
Social Security has been working on a replacement for the DOT for decades. Supposedly it’s ready but they aren’t using it. Why? The only thing I can surmise is that a new occupational information system will end up affecting who gets approved and who gets denied and that’s unacceptable to Social Security. They want something “new” that’s exactly the same as the outdated data they’ve been using since 1979.
16 comments:
Oh boy this one always gets a laugh by adjudicators. The gist of it is, IMO, no one wants to touch this monstrosity with a 10 ft pole. No one wants to take on the responsibility (meaning blame). Also, adjudicators would have to create all new lists of 3 jobs for sedentary, light, medium work. That could mean some might have to stop using plate stacker as a job for medium strength, high school, unskilled in their denials. LOL! And no one has time to look up all new job possibilities. Some of my colleagues have been using the same group of jobs for years!
and you expect whatever system they come up with to be an improvement? silly rabbit, you should know better by now. they'll put their smudgy handprints all over this and the grids, making step five a complete clusterdump of a hot mess for the claimants, but great for ssa.
plus, i'm sure they would really love to use the labor market data from the past three years, with its shift towards working from home. i can already imagine the jacked up ALJ hypos.
With all the tech changes, more jobs coould be done remotely where sit/stand is at the control of the worker, voice activated assistants mean more people with dexterity issues have an option, remember, it is any job in the economy not how available those jobs are.
I think any change showing work to be more sedentary would benefit claimants in the short run. Ultimately though, I think it would greatly reduce the number of allowances long term as the aging population moves through.
@11:44 Tech jobs from home is everyones dream! Very few are qualified, however, especially if they have been on disability for a while. Working from home would be an ideal working environment for multiple disabilities, but like you said, it's not how available those jobs are, it's just a job that is now offered in the economy. I don't think, either, that one jumps into a job like that and they just trust a person to work from home right away. Even simple transcription jobs (which are quickly on their way out with new tech accomplishing menial tasks) which can be done at home, are rarely offered at-home work for the first year.
Once everything is automated, there will be no need for disability.
What's the goal of these stories? Yes, the DOT is old, but VEs can address that. Yes, there aren't enough front line employees right now, but agency leadership needs to be able to hold onto new hires and doesn't have a great track record of doing that. Is this reporter trying to improve the program or blow it up?
When I heard a VE mention human cannonball as a listed job in the DOT [about 5 incidents in the USA at the time in circuses], I figured there is no way that SSA could begin to replace what the DOT does. Then SSA opted out of working with the replacement. Whatever we get will be deficient. SSA's only hope to withstand judicial scrutiny is by having VEs fill in the blanks.
The VE in my case quoted two jobs and numbers that weren't listed in the DOT and one that didn't fit the hypothesis. Did a Federal court rubber stamp the denial? Of course!
The article includes a list of obsolete jobs. It also gives the incidence numbers for each job. How can they be obsolete if there still are incidence numbers? Where did those incidence numbers come from? I hope there is a follow-up article on how SSA determines whether a job exists in "significant numbers." and what constitutes a "significant number." When a VE identifies by whatever methodology that only three jobs can be performed, each with a national job incidence of less than 2,000, how can an ALJ find work exists in significant numbers?
To 10:37
Jobs can be obsolete in terms of whether or not there are a significant number of people doing the job even when there are a handful of people in that activity. Think typewriter repair or elevator operator for example.
As to what constitutes a significant number, that is a question that repeatedly comes up in Federal Court and there are no hard and fast guidelines. There are cases that suggest anything less than 25,000 is not significant yet there are Courts that will affirm cases where there are only hundreds of jobs cited. Social Security could have clarified this years ago but they never wanted to write any regulation that might make it easier to find disability.
In terms of disability, the SSA is like any other insurance company. They try to limit payments as much as the Courts will let them get away with. ALJ's can bee the claimants best friend and many are but there are also ALJs that deny 90% of the cases and the Agency has never been willing to address that particular problem on a global basis.
If the concern is that too many claims will be paid given the relative lack of unskilled sedentary jobs, perhaps a solution would be to stop lazily giving everyone with a mental impairment an unskilled RFC? Sorry, but not every John and Jane with depression is incapable of carrying out more than one or two steps.
"What's the goal of these stories? Yes, the DOT is old, but VEs can address that."
It's true that VEs could address outdated info in the DOT, but in my experience of doing many hearings they almost never do because there is no rule requiring it, and why do more work for the same pay? It is routine for many of them to cite obsolete jobs from the DOT. Few if any ALJ's ask for that information, again because they don't have to. VE testimony that is "consistent with the DOT" is viewed as a safe harbor for a step five claim denial. The stories invite us to consider a fundamental question. Should "consistent with the DOT" be a safe harbor to deny a disability claimant in cases where the DOT no longer contains accurate information? Most would say no, because inaccurate vocational information is not sufficient to satisfy SSA's step five burden of proof, or even a deferential substantial evidence standard.
A truly independent adjudicator would refuse to give credence to such obviously defective evidence. The fact that ALJs routinely rely on this garbage proves that the idea that these folks are "independent" adjudicators is no more than myth.
Everyone always blames Ssa staff for every problem. The real problem is not enough staffing period.
Plausible Denying Abilty?
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