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WHY IS THERE A VOCATIONAL EXPERT AT YOUR HEARING?

In almost every disability hearing for an adult Social Security will call a vocational witness (VE) to testify.  The VE has two jobs:

1.  He or she will classify the claimant's Past Relevant Work or PRW.  Each full-time job performed during the past 15 years will be classified as to its
  •     EXERTION LEVEL
    • Sedentary
    • Light
    • Medium
    • Heavy
    • Very Heavy
  •     and SKILL LEVEL
    • Skilled
    • Semi-Skilled
    • Unskilled
2.    The Vocational Expert will answer the judge's hypothetical questions about how various functional limitations restrict the claimant's ability to perform work.

In most cases, in order to win the case, the conclusion must be reached that the claimant cannot perform any of his past relevant work or any other work which exists in significant numbers in the United States economy.

    The testimony of the vocational witness is often problematic.  The VE's testimony, in fact, may form the basis for the judge to deny the claim because the VE will "find" some work that the claimant can still perform.  Case lost.

Some of the problems I often find with vocational testimony include:

1. How many jobs are available in the national economy?  The VE will give a specific number of jobs, usually in the tens of thousands, for several jobs based on the DOT code of each job (Dictionary of Occupational Titles).  These job numbers are highly suspect because the US Department of Labor nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide this information.

2. The VE responds to hypothetical questions that are, at best, subjective in their content and may not reflect the realistic restrictions on the claimant's ability to perform full-time jobs.  The VE can only deal with the judge has given him/her.

3.  I've had vocational experts give jobs that the claimant could perform, even though it is a well known fact that few, if any, of those jobs still exist in the US economy.  "Toy stuffer" would be an example.  "Surveillance Systems Monitor" would be another such job that no longer exists as it is described in the DOT.

Your attorney or representative will earn his money dealing with the vocational witness.  This is something that you certainly are not prepared to deal with, and you should not have to. 

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