An Unsuccessful Attack on the Job Browser Pro Methodology -- Warranted

The Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division, decided William B.U. v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. in May 2023. The issue is whether Mr. U could perform other light work with unstated "additional limitations." The vocational witness identified storage rental clerk (63,000 jobs), cafeteria attendant (29,000 jobs), and furniture rental clerk (58,000 jobs). The issue is that the attorney did not understand how Job Browser Pro works and the VW did not say.

SkillTRAN publishes Job Browser Pro. SkillTRAN explains its methodology. Job Browser Pro's methodology is not unknown, indecipherable, or incomprehensible. Justice Souter, sitting by designation, squarely addressed the issue in Purdy v. Berryhiill, 887 F.3d 7, 11 (1st Cir. 2018).

The question is not whether the VW should be able to regurgitate the published JBP methodology but instead whether any person representing claimants before the Social Security Administration should know the program better than the witness. The answer is "yes." The representative, attorney or not, should know the program better than the VW and better than the ALJ. If the representative does not know how job numbers get generated from JBP, the client will lose cases that the agency should have paid. The VW provides the evidence that allows the agency to wrongfully deny our clients' benefits.

We addressed storage facility rental clerk in May 2022. Of the 68,000 jobs currently attributed to storage facility rental clerk, 66,000 exist in the real estate subsector (NAICS 531000). Use of the real estate subsector has an apparent conflict with the purpose statement of the occupation: Leases storage space to customers of rental storage facility. SkillTRAN is not there to testify. Ask the VW to defend the use of that industry designation as opposed to the lessors of miniwarehouses and self-storage units (NAICS 531130), an industry representing about 3% of the real estate subsector. That is the issue.

Cafeteria attendant is one of those jobs that clearly does not permit sitting two hours per day. 

Furniture rental consultant had (past tense intentional) a serious problem in JBP. Version 1.7.4.1 fixed the problem discussed in the linked blog. JBP now estimates 2,654 jobs in the nation. JBP fixed the inconsistent use of three and four-digit NAICS codes (the non-zero digits) to eliminate the double counting. See the linked blog. 

When the medical expert testifies, we know the medical evidence and point out the inconsistencies between the testimony and the written record. When the vocational expert testifies, we must know the vocational data and point out inconsistencies between teh data and the relatively static data from BLS and how JBP uses that data. If we want to represent our clients well and seek a just result, we do not have a choice.

We can do better.

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Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, An Unsuccessful Attack on the Job Browser Pro Methodology -- Warranted, California Social Security Attorney (September 20, 2023)  https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

The author has been AV-rated since 2000 and listed in Super Lawyers since 2008.