We have heard and seen the limitation to simple work in various iterations. Simple and routine; simple and repetitive; simple instructions; simple tasks, all associated with a medically determinable severe impairment that limits the range of work available to a person. The Commissioner pushes back on this concept. Vocational Witnesses (VW) will argue that the person has a high school education. The time has come to recast that finding of medical impairment as causing a ripened educational deficit. We start with the regulation:
Formal education
that you completed many years before your impairment began, or unused skills
and knowledge that were a part of your formal education, may no longer be
useful or meaningful in terms of your ability to work. Therefore, the
numerical grade level that you completed in school may not represent your
actual educational abilities. These may be higher or lower. However, if
there is no other evidence to contradict it, we will use your numerical grade
level to determine your educational abilities.
20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1564(a); 416.964(a) (emphasis added).
The Commissioner states as a matter of law that the grade level completed may not represent educational abilities. We agree. A person that lacks the ability to perform the cognitive functions associated with a high school education lacks the ability to bring those educational abilities to bear in a work setting.
The Commissioner states that an individual with a high school education and above possesses the educational ability to perform semi-skilled through skilled work. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1564(b)(4), 416.964(b)(4). Individuals with a marginal education have the “reasoning, arithmetic, and language skills which are needed to do simple, unskilled types of jobs.” Id. at (b)(2) (emphasis added). The ALJ bears the burden at step five to determine the claimant's education level. Silveira v. Apfel, 204 F.3d 1257, 1261–62 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding the Commissioner bears the burden at step five to establish the claimant is literate) overruled on other grounds 20 §§ 404.1564(a); 416.964 (deleting the ability to communicate in English and illiterate in English).
Social Security Ruling 20-1p confirms regulations. An individual with at
least a fourth-grade education can read and write simple messages. The Ruling reiterates
“to assign an individual to an education category lower or higher than his or
her highest level of formal education, there must be specific evidence
supporting the finding in the determination or decision.” An ALJ finding that a claimant could not perform more than simple work means that the person lacks the ability to
access and use a high school education. The historical note that the claimant has a high school education or more does not answer the question posed by 20
C.F.R. §§ 404.1564(b), 416.964(b): whether the claimant's actual
educational abilities are lower than his formal education level achieved. Where the
ALJ finds a limitation to simple work, the factual finding answers that
question; the claimant's actual educational abilities are not commensurate with past education. The finding of a high school education therefore conflicts with
the finding of a limitation to simple work because the claimant cannot access that
reasoning, arithmetic, and language abilities beyond simple work.
In Zavalin v. Colvin, 778 F.3d 842, 847 (9th Cir. 2015), the Ninth Circuit considered
whether a limitation to simple routine tasks conflicted with the ALJ’s finding
that the claimant could perform work requiring reasoning level three. Zavalin rejected the Commissioner’s argument that “the
DOT’s reasoning levels correspond only to a person’s level of education
and, therefore, Zavalin is presumptively capable of Level 3 Reasoning because
he completed high school,” instead finding “the DOT’s reasoning levels clearly
correspond to the claimant’s ability because they assess whether a person can
‘apply’ increasingly difficult principles of rational thought and ‘deal’ with
increasingly complicated problems.” Id. (emphasis original) (citing
DICOT, Appendix C, available at https://www.dol.
gov/agencies/oalj/PUBLIC/DOT/REFERENCES/DOTAPPC. Zavalin stands for the proposition that a claimant
lacks the ability to access their
formal education in the presence of a limitation to simple routine tasks. The
court’s conclusion is consistent with the regulation: that “the numerical grade
level that you completed in school may not represent your actual educational
abilities. These may be higher or lower.” 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1564(a), 416.964(a) (emphasis added).
How does this impact the disability analysis? A person 55 years of age or older limited to medium and simple work with no past relevant is presumptively disabled. 20 C.F.R. part 404, subpart P, Appendix 2, Rule 203.10. A person limited to simple work with any other severe impairment and no past relevant work is presumptively disabled. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.15642b), 416.962(b).
This additional theory of disability takes advantage of the change of past relevant work from fifteen years to five years. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1560, 416.960 (as amended 2024). More claimants will meet that vocational criterion of no past relevant work. This additional vocational detriment will apply to SSI claims that have remote work experience, if any, as well as DIB claims on or over the edge of the date last insured.
We should press this point. A person limited to simple work should never be treated as having the ability to access and use a high school education. That person should be treated as having a marginal education.
And now the bad news. The DOT broke down the educational requirements in reasoning, mathematics, and language on an ascending scale. The regulations break down the categories as illiteracy, marginal education, limited education, and high school education and above. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1564(b), 416.964(b). The Occupational Requirements Survey tracks illiteracy but does not differentiate between limited education of grades 7-12 and grades 1-6. The ORS is not agency compliant as to education. That failing may require or allow a claimant to rely on the DOT to fill in the interstitial gaps where a grade 1-6 makes a difference compared to 7-12. In assessing Specific Vocational Preparation, the various data sets have always treated high school as a zero. Jobs that require a high school education are unskilled but not simple. Under the reasoning level 3 analysis as inconsistent with simple work, an educational ability of 7-12 (without graduation) occupies a GED 3-4 level. And we must recognize that the median adult in the US reads at the 6th grade level -- capable of not more than simple work under the operative regulations.
Education will not be a primary erosive factor on the ability to perform work in a SOC group.
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Suggested Citation:
Lawrence Rohlfing, A Limitation to Simple Work -- a Medical and Educational Finding, California Social Security Attorney (May 8, 2025) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com
The author has been AV-rated since 2000 and listed in Super Lawyers since 2008.
