SSD Secret

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

The Social Security Administration (“the SSA”) leads you to believe that you must be incapable of any level of work in order to receive Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits. However, that is not always the case.

The SSA approved today an on-the-record (“OTR”) request that I submitted for a 60 year old client who worked as a sales person for a carting company and car dealership during the last 15 years. Those jobs required him to be on feet most of the day, which classified it as “light” work. Because the OTR was approved, he will receive SSD benefits even though in this particular instance the SSA did not conclude that he was incapable of any type of work.

I argued that under the regulations the claimant had to be found disabled if he had no transferable skills, and that to find that he had transferable skills to sedentary work, “there must be very little, if any, vocational adjustment required in terms of tools, work processes, work settings, or the industry.” Because the SSA found the claimant could not do his past light work and had no transferable skills it agreed and concluded the claimant was disabled, without determining if he was capable of doing sedentary work.

There are a special set of guidelines called the “Grid Rules” that are a subpart appendix to the regulations. Familiarity with those guidelines is just one of the many reasons why it pays to retain an attorney experienced in this area of law when seeking your SSD benefits

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