David Weaver, a former Social Security official, has written a piece for LinkedIn echoing something I had written about recently, the need for Social Security to start using the updated occupational data it has collected in making disability determinations. I thought that Social Security had not released the data. Weaver says they have released the actual data. They just haven’t released a front end for the data, making it useless as is. However, Weaver says that third party vendors have developed front ends making the data usable. Social Security may want to suppress this data but I don’t think this will be possible. The Courts don’t like “junk science.” Is there any “science” more junky than the Dictionary of Occupational Titles?
6 comments:
The DOT is woefully outdated. But there will be lots of new jobs and far less disabled with the new economy. Most people work from home, including at SSA itself. Judges handle hearings remotely. People have entire jobs just siting on their iPhones all day long. Simple stuff too. Many previously disabled will now have work.
Weaver has a point. Occu Collect, Workplace Analytics and perhaps others are making access to the new data by SOC code more workable and it should be used. Getting VEs to use that data in a consistent manner, and include all the appropriate job number reductions for each limitation? That would require oversight and guidance that SSA has not yet exercised over VEs. Unless that changes we are still stuck with junk science. Different VEs will keep giving greatly varying job numbers for the exact same jobs, based on the exact same limitations until SSA requires them to always show their work and not just give a number.
Be careful what you wish for.
Hence the problem. Any change to the DOT will affect outcomes. And those decisions will face class action courts cases. It is not an easy fix especially with the cuts at and decreased trust in BLS data.
Not much "science" in any of this. Just read a decision where ALJ diagnosed the claimant as not having dementia because the MMSE is just a "screening" tool even though her doctor said it "indicated" dementia. Never mind that she also has been diagnosed with neurocognitive disorder which he also dismissed as not a valid diagnosis based on his infinite medical knowledge. He also diagnosed the claimant as not having RA because her ANA was negative even though she later had a positive ANA and apparently in all his medical training he did not learn that a diagnosis of RA can be made with a negative ANA. Where is the "science" in all of this? I can't find it.
At risk of offending, I don't think the job numbers are the whole problem. After years trying to make a particular argument about DOT jobs being performed at different exertion levels than they are described, I have concluded that many VE don't actually understand the exertional definitions and their application. As noted above, SSA seems to have no interest in building a consistent decision mechanism, which is reflective of our government's attitude toward social welfare in general.
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