PROVING DISABILITY - THE 5 STEPS

Social Security has established a 5-step sequential process to determine if a claimant is disabled.  These steps must occur in sequential order.  A claimant must satisfy one step before going on to the next.  In very brief order, here are those 5 steps.


Step 1.  Is the claimant engaged in significant gainful activity?  If the claimant is working at SGA level, then he is not disabled.


Step 2.  Does the claimant have a severe ailment that is medically determinable?


Step 3.  Does the claimant meet one of the Listings in Appendix I to Subpart P of Part 404 - Code of Federal Regulations?  If no listing is met, the hearing officer must use the medical evidence to formulate a "Residual Function Capacity" or RFC - which is a statement of what the claimant can do, in spite of his or her restrictions, in light of age, education, and past relevant experience.


Step 4.  Can the claimant perform any of his/her past relevant work?  Past relevant experience will consider jobs the claimant has held during the last 15 years.  The Government's vocational expert (vocational witness) will testify at this step to help the judge answer this question.


Step 5:  If the claimant cannot perform any of his or her past relevant work, the final question becomes:  Can this individual perform any other work that is reasonably available in today's national, regional or local economy.  Here again, the vocational witness will testify - possibly listing jobs that the claimant could perform (assuming he could find one of these jobs).  I might note that the Government need not prove that you can find or get one of these jobs, only that they exist and that if you could find and get one of them, you are able to perform at it.  That's enough to prevent you from being "disabled."


I was recently in a hearing where the vocational expert testified that the claimant could hold a job as a chef in the food industry.  My client's eyes sparkled.  "That's what I've always wanted to do!" he said, "that's my chosen field.  I've been looking for a job as a chef for twenty years.  If there's any jobs like that out there, I can't find 'em."


Subpressing a chuckle, the judge explained, "We're not saying you can get one of those jobs, just that you could do the work if you had the job."


Fortunately, we were able to end the hearing with a somber reminder that the claimant had restrictions that prevented him from working as a chef - or anything else - for the time being.  So all was well.

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