2. Job Browser Pro: Users can access this program in the SSA Digital Library. Once you make the selection for Job Browser Pro, the Citrix StoreFront brings up a page of Apps from which you can select Job Browser Pro. Users can search by job title, DOT code or keyword(s) within the title, and task description. After selecting an occupation and clicking “Details”, users can find all DOT/SCO information on the “Quick View – Codes” button. The advanced search, which is found on the opening page with the Job Title and Description Keyword, also allows searches by a variety of other lists, such as GOE or occupational group. All these searches can be useful when performing a TSA.
SSA does not endorse JBP. SSA permits ALJs to use JBP and to follow along with the vocational witnesses.
In describing the changes to OccuBrowse, the EM discusses four broad categories: (1) physical and environmental; (2) mental-cognitive; (3) skills and abilities; and (4) transferable skills. Para. C.2. The EM tells users to "use" the physical and environmental codes. These come from the physical and environmental parts of the Selected Characteristics of Occupations (SCO).
Mental-cognitive covers the data for work situations (temperaments) and work functions (data-people-things). The EM says:
Do not use any of the functions under Mental-Cognitive. We do not use Temperaments (what the software tool manufacturer calls work situations or situations) or DPT (what the software manufacturer calls work functions) to determine the demands of work.
Let's address the easy one first, data-people-things. It does not matter what SkillTRAN says about DPT in OccuBrowse or JBP. What matters is what the Department of Labor says about DPT. We look to the DOT, Appendix B:
Much of the information in this publication is based on the premise that every job requires a worker to function, to some degree, in relation to Data, People, and Things. These relationships are identified and explained below. They appear in the form of three listings arranged in each instance from the relatively simple to the complex in such a manner that each successive relationship includes those that are simpler and excludes the more complex. (As each of the relationships to People represents a wide range of complexity, resulting in considerable overlap among occupations, their arrangement is somewhat arbitrary and can be considered a hierarchy only in the most general sense.) The identifications attached to these relationships are referred to as Worker Functions, and provide standard terminology for use in summarizing how a worker functions on the job.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth digits of the occupational code reflect relationships to Data, People, and Things, respectively. These digits express a job's relationship to Data, People, and Things by identifying the highest appropriate function in each listing ...
After listing the seven data functions, eight people functions, and six things functions, Appendix B provides "Definitions of Worker Functions." When OccuBrowse or JBP label the DPT codes as worker functions, they do so by parroting what the DOT says in Appendix B. The Commissioner takes administrative notice of the DOT in regulation and calls it the primary source of occupational information in SSR 00-4p. The EM is incompetent to erode the unambiguous language of the regulation and the mandatory language of the binding ruling.
Now we address the harder subject, the temperaments. The DOT does not list the temperaments. The SCO does not list the temperaments; that aspect of work was not "selected" for inclusion in the SCO. But the temperaments are part of the broad dataset that resulted in the DOT and SCO. We know that because the glossary for the DOT and SCO says so, the Revised Handbook for Analyzing Jobs. The RHAJ describes temperaments first in chapter 2, concepts and principles of job analysis:
Adaptability requirements made on the worker by the job-worker situation.
The second word in the description is critical -- requirements. In chapter 10, the RHAJ makes the same point:
Temperaments, a component of Worker Characteristics, are the adaptability requirements made on the worker by specific types of jobs.
There it is again -- requirements. After listing the 11 different temperaments, the RHAJ explains:
The category Temperaments is one of the components of job analysis because different job situations call for different personality traits on the part of the worker. Experience in placing individuals in jobs indicates that the degree to which the worker can adapt to work situations is often a determining factor for success. A person's dissatisfaction or failure to perform adequately can sometimes be attributed to an inability to adapt to a work situation rather than to an inability to learn and carry out job duties.
The EM focuses on personality traits. We know that personality traits give rise to maladaptive behaviors. SSA calls those personality disorders. Personality traits are by definition non-severe. But that does not relieve the Commissioner of considering non-severe impairments in assessing the ability to perform other work under the statute and regulations.
The description of temperaments addresses adaptability and the characteristic that the presence or absence of adaptability will often determine success -- will this person sustain work. Getting along with other people, a limitation to repetitive work, being precise, tolerating stress, or limiting to rote duties without change are regular parts of a residual functional capacity assessment for the mental requirements of work caused by a severe impairment. The only question is whether we ignore the data accumulated by the DOL. The Commissioner is not the expert on the requirements of work, the Secretary of Labor is that expert. What the DOL says about work is worthy of administrative notice and reliable under the regulations.
The EM says that SSA adjudicators should not consider OccuBrowse and JBP data about DPT and temperaments because of what SkillTRAN says about those data fields. Ignore SkillTRAN. But pay attention to what the Department of Labor says about the data and what the data means.
___________________________
Suggested Citation:
Lawrence Rohlfing, EM-21065 -- SSA Does Not Consider DPT or Temperaments -- Oh Really, Part 1, California Social Security Attorney (June 24, 2022) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment