Vocational Expert Voodoo

I was recently asked the following:

I had my hearing today. The judge had a vocational rep come in to testify. He said I had two job options. … I live in a small town that probably does not offer the two jobs the vocational expert said I could do.

First, keep in mind that the Vocational Expert testifies about two things:

1. Job Titles. These are the kinds of jobs you can still perform despite your limitations. Examples of jobs the vocational expert may cite are call out operator, surveillance systems monitor, information clerk.
2. Incidence of jobs. This is the number of jobs for each job title.

Second, Social Security considers jobs on a national and regional level. The region is the state a person lives in. 

If there are a significant number of jobs which you can still do at a substantial gainful activity level in the regional economy, then you can be denied.  

What is a “significant number of jobs?

Rule of thumb: if the vocational expert says there are at least 1,000 jobs (not job titles) that you can still do in your state, you may be denied.  

So, if the Vocational Expert say that you can still work as an “Information Clerk” and that there are 30,000 jobs nationally, and 1,200 jobs in the region (state), you may be denied.  Note: these numbers are made up for this example.

But, what if there aren’t any “Information Clerk” jobs in my town?

Unfortunately, Social Security does not consider the avialability of the jobs cited are in your town, so long as they exist in your “region.”

It gets worse! Social Security also does not consider:

• The number of job openings for any of the cited jobs.
• Whether a person can actually get hired for one of the cited jobs. 

It is quite possible to be denied because you are able to do a job that does not exist in your home town. Or, there are no job openings.  Or, there are job openings, but you cannot get hired for that job.  

Social Security is a difficult system.  You just have to keep trying and it really helps to have a skilled lawyer with you navigate the Social Security system.