SEE ARTICLE FOR INTERACTIVE EMBEDDED DICTIONARY OF OCCUPATION TITLES
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/27/social-security-job-titles-disabled-applicants-obsolete/
Social Security denies disability benefits based on list with jobs from 1977
Despite spending at least $250 million to modernize its vocational system, the agency still relies on 45-year-old job titles to deny thousands of claims a year.
December 27, 2022 at 10:15 a.m. EST
He
had made it through four years of denials and appeals, and Robert Heard
was finally before a Social Security judge who would decide whether he
qualified for disability benefits. Two debilitating strokes had left the
47-year-old electrician with halting speech, an enlarged heart and
violent tremors.
There
was just one final step: A vocational expert hired by the Social
Security Administration had to tell the judge if there was any work
Heard could still do despite his condition. Heard was stunned as the
expert canvassed his computer and announced his findings: He could find work as a nut sorter, a dowel inspector or an egg processor — jobs that virtually no longer exist in the United States.
Nut sorter job description from Dictionary of Occupational Titles (TWP)
“Whatever it is that does those things, machines do it now,” said Heard,
who lives on food stamps and a small stipend from his parents in a
subsidized apartment in Tullahoma, Tenn. “Honestly, if they could see my
shaking, they would see I couldn’t sort any nuts. I’d spill them all
over the floor.”
He
was still hopeful the administrative law judge hearing his claim for
$1,300 to $1,700 per month in benefits had understood his limitations.
But
while the judge agreed that Heard had multiple, severe impairments, he
denied him benefits, writing that he had “job opportunities” in three
occupations that are nearly obsolete and agreeing with the expert’s
dubious claim that 130,000 positions were still available sorting nuts, inspecting dowels and processing eggs.
Every
year, thousands of claimants like Heard find themselves blocked at this
crucial last step in the arduous process of applying for disability
benefits, thanks to labor market data that was last updated 45 years
ago.
The jobs are spelled out in an exhaustive publication known as the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
The vast majority of the 12,700 entries were last updated in 1977. The
Department of Labor, which originally compiled the index, abandoned it
31 years ago in a sign of the economy’s shift from blue-collar manufacturing to information and services.
Social Security, though, still relies on it at the final stage when a claim is reviewed. The government, using strict vocational rules, assesses someone’s capacity to work and if jobs exist “in significant numbers” that they could still do. The dictionary remains the backbone of a $200 billion disability system that provides benefits to 15 million people.
It
lists 137 unskilled, sedentary jobs — jobs that most closely match the
skills and limitations of those who apply for disability benefits. But
in reality, most of these occupations were offshored, outsourced, and
shifted to skilled work decades ago. Many have disappeared altogether.
Since
the 1990s, Social Security officials have deliberated over how to
revise the list of occupations to reflect jobs that actually exist
in the modern economy, according to audits and interviews. For the last
14 years, the agency has promised courts, claimants, government
watchdogs and Congress that a new, state-of-the art system representing
the characteristics of modern work would soon be available to improve
the quality of its 2 million disability decisions per year.
But after spending at least $250 million since 2012 to
build a directory of 21st century jobs, an internal fact sheet shows,
Social Security is not using it, leaving antiquated vocational rules in
place to determine whether disabled claimants win or lose. Social
Security has estimated that the project’s initial cost will reach about
$300 million, audits show.
“It’s
a great injustice to these people,” said Kevin Liebkemann, a New Jersey
attorney who trains disability attorneys and has written extensively on
Social Security’s use of vocational data. “We’re relying on job
information from the 1970s to say thumbs-up or thumbs-down to people who
desperately need benefits. It’s horrifying.”
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