SSD Embarrassment

Thursday, December 29th, 2022

Most people applying for Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits or Supplemental Security Income benefits (“SSI”) understand that their doctors need to support the disability claims. What most people don’t know is that their doctors must support the inability to work at any full time job. The Social Security Administration (“SSA”) evaluates if there are any occupations in the economy that exist “in significant numbers” that a claimant could perform. The SSA doesn’t care if the occupations they find are still in existence, or performed in the same manner, or what the purported jobs pay. The SSA only cares about denying as many cases as possible, even if their methods are questionable and inaccurate.

The SSA relies on testimony from a “Vocational Expert” (“VE”) at hearing. The VE uses an antiquated publication called the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (“DOT”) to come up with jobs that a claimant could do when the claimant can’t perform their own occupation. The DOT was updated in 1977. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that a lot has changed in the last 45 years, especially in the ways jobs are performed. A lot of the jobs in the DOT don’t even exist anymore. Claimants are continuously denied SSD/SSI benefits when a VE finds jobs in the DOT that claimants supposedly can do, and then the VE uses unreliable methods to estimate how many of these jobs are available nationwide. The SSA wastes billions of dollars, and can never seem to make the necessary updates and changes to their system to be able to make more accurate assessments and decisions. It’s embarrassing!

It is vitally important that you retain an experienced attorney who specializes in disability and knows how the system works. We have over three decades of experience working with the SSA and its Administrative Law Judges (“ALJs”), cross examining the medical experts and VEs, which requires a thorough understanding of the DOT and ONET. Unlike many other disability attorneys, if an ALJ denies your claim, we can appeal your case to Federal Court, where we can succeed in obtaining a new hearing, or an approval of benefits. While we cannot guarantee the outcome, we can guarantee that we will fight for you to make certain you get a fair hearing.

Please feel free to call our office for a free phone consultation. We have offices conveniently located on Long Island in both Nassau and Suffolk counties.

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