Douglas Prutting, Vocational Expert and Probable Prevaricator

Vocational experts are not used to being challenged.  We need to make the challenge ordinary.  The time investment up front is extraordinary but the dividends in the long run will more than compensate for the initial investment.  Douglas Prutting, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the example of the day.

We get to a light residual functional capacity, simple repetitive tasks, minimal educational requirements, and limited to standing/walking four hours in a workday.  Prutting identifies small products assembler I (DOT 706.684-022).  Prutting uses Job Browser Pro.

Which version?
 The latest version that came out in July 2019.  

Houston, we have a problem.  The latest version of JBP did not come out in July 2019.  Version 1.7 came out in October 2019.

How many jobs does JBP state there are for small product assembler?
218,000.

Is that for the entire SOC group (51-9199) and not the for the DOT code?
Yes.  

How many jobs does JBP estimate exists for small product assembler?
I don't know how to get that number.  

JBP uses the OES job numbers.  JBP is plain about that.  The current OES job number for production workers, all other is 230,760.  I do not have to check JBP, I know that Prutting is not looking at a 2019 release of JBP, either the last installment of ver. 1.6 or ver. 1.7.  He is not truthful.

The May 2014 OES data, released by BLS in May 2015, estimates the number of production workers, all other (SOC 51-9199) at 217,500.  No other year comes close.  Data for years after 2014 are too high.  Data for 2013 reports 206,600 jobs.  Prutting is using the JBP release from 2015 and has either never bothered to check current data or never updated JBP, another misstatement.

Douglas Prutting is a prevaricator.  It is just that plain.  He got caught using old data and resorted to the natural human instinct of self-defense by speaking falsely.  Prutting probably is not used to anyone challenging him or caring that he lies.  But I do.  I care.  And so should the agency.  The ALJ has access to JBP at their desk on the fly and can check witness testimony that relies on JBP.  But they don't care.  Neither does the agency.  Public confidence in the system demands that we expose false testimony and demand that Prutting and his ilk speak truthfully and accurately.  The quality of life of disabled people depends on it.  In an age of budget retraction, we have to prove disability when the person cannot work.

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SUGGESTED CITATION:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Douglas Prutting, Vocational Expert and Probable Prevaricator, California Social Security Attorney (March 4, 2020)
https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com/2020/03/douglas-prutting-vocational-expert-and.html