Social Security disability hearings: erosion in the job base
The vocational expert at a Social Security hearing may testify that there is an, “erosion in the job base.” I have had a number of people ask me what this means?
As I wrote about before, the vocational expert’s job is to testify about the availability of different jobs in the national economy. The vocational expert responds to be Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ’s) hypothetical questions about the effect of limitations on an individual’s ability to perform job duties.
In other words, the vocational expert testifies about what jobs (if any) a person can still do despite their limitations.
However, not every job is performed the same way, and, jobs can be performed differently (with different abilities and limitations) in different industries.
Example 1: cashier. Working as a cashier typically requires an individual to stand for the entire shift. However, some hospital cafeteria cashiers can sit while working as a cashier. So, a vocational expert may testify that an individual as follows:
An individual with those limitations still has the capacity of working as a cashier, with a 65% erosion in the job base.
In other words, 65% of cashier jobs (note: this is a number out of the air) requires standing, but 35% of cashier jobs allow an individual to work while sitting down (cashiers in hospital cafeterias).
Example 2: parking lot attendant. This is a job where a person provides tickets and takes payments at a parking lot. Since this job requires an individual to be at the parking lot during the blazing heat of summer and the biting cold of winter, this position is often eliminated if an individual has limitations on exposure to temperature extremes.
However, some parking lots have been enclosed booths with temperature controls (air-conditioning and heating) which might allow an individual to perform the duties of a parking lot attendant even they cannot be in temperature extremes. This would result in an erosion in the number of parking lot attendant jobs the individual would be able to work at, but a percentage of parking lot attendant positions would remain.
- An erosion does not mean that an individual will be found disabled. In order to win an adult Social Security facility case, an individual has to show that that there is not a substantial number of jobs the he or she can perform.
- If the erosion is particularly high, and the actual number of available jobs is very small, the erosion might mean that Social Security would approve the claim. However, that is not guaranteed.
It all depends on he final number of jobs still available that the individual can still perform.
CC photo credit: nateOne
