The O*NET -- SSA Says Do Not Use It -- But You Should

The Commissioner re-issued EM-21065 REV 2 effective January 6, 2025. EM-21065 follows the effective date of SSR 24-3p, removed references to SSR 00-4p, and made editorial changes. EM-21065 describes the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) as different from the regulatory terms and definitions. The EM says:

Occupational Information Network (O*NET) Information: O*NET does not define physical exertion requirements in a way that is consistent with SSA regulations (20 CFR 404.1567 and 416.967). O*NET instead groups lifting with activities that SSA rules define as non-exertional (e.g., climbing, stooping, and handling). Accordingly, the information in O*NET is not generally usable in our adjudication process.

First, the criticism of the O*NET addresses the question of exertion citing the definitions of sedentary, light, and medium work in the regulations. The statement by the EM is untrue. The O*NET does not address exertion in terms of lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling at all. The O*NET collects data and reports sitting, standing, and walking or running. (I am boldfacing the data points that I see as most common in the disability practice that matter). The O*NET collects data and reports in work context pertaining to physical work conditions:

1. Bending or twisting

2. Climbing ladders, scaffolds, or poles

3. Keeping or regaining balance

4. Kneeling, crouching, or crawling

5. Repetitive motions

6. Using the hands for handle, control, or feel

The O*NET does not label these activities as exertional. SSA puts that label on them. What is clear is the proposition that the nine categories of physical work conditions are important components of a residual functional capacity assessment. The observation that the O*NET does not classify exertion does not make the data about other work requirements inapplicable to the process. 

The O*NET collects data and reports for environmental conditions:

1. Cramped work space and awkward positions

2. Exposure to contaminants

3. Exposure to whole body vibration

4. Extremely bright or inadequate lighting

5. Sounds and noise levels 

6. Very hot and cold temperatures

This data answers questions about the requirements of work that actually exist in the national economy. The O*NET collects data and reports on the question of job hazards:

1. Disease or infection

2. Hazardous conditions

3. Hazardous equipment

4. High places

5. Minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings

6. Radiation

The O*NET collects data and reports data on work attire:

1. Protective safety equipment

2. Breathing apparatus, safety harness, full protection suits, or radiation protection

The O*NET collects data and reports on work settings:

1. Enclosed vehicle or equipment

2. Open vehicle or equipment

3. Indoors, environmentally controlled

4. Indoors, not environmentally controlled

5. Outdoors, exposed to weather

6. Outdoors, under cover

7. Physical proximity to other people

The O*NET collects data and reports structural job characteristics:

1. Level of competition

2. Consequence of error

3. Freedom to make decisions

4. Impact of decisions

5. Duration of typical work week

6. Pace determined by speed of equipment

7. Time pressure

8. Work schedules

9. Degree of automation

10. Importance of being exact or accurate

11. Importance of repeating same tasks

12. Structure versus unstructured work

The O*NET collects data and reports interpersonal relationships:

1. Electronic mail

2. Face-to-face discussions

3. Letters and memos

4. Public speaking

5. Telephone

6. Contact with others

7. Deal with physically aggressive people

8. Deal with unpleasant or angry people

9. Frequency of conflict situations

10. Responsibility for outcome or results

11. Responsibility for others' health and safety

12. Coordinate or lead others

13. Deal with external customers

14. Work with a group or team

These data do not speak to the issue of exertion and use of the medical-vocational guidelines. These data do address the requirements of work at step five of the sequential evaluation process where some of the components of the residual functional capacity require answers that the O*NET addresses. 

The O*NET resolves the question of part-time versus full-time work. The O*NET addresses the frequency of contact with others, responsibility for outcome of work, contact with the public, and teamwork. The O*NET addresses change in work schedule. These data points meet the administrative notice criteria of 20 CFR §§ 404.1566(d), 416.966(d). The Department of Labor describes the scope of data in its publication of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles:

The O*Net is now the primary source of occupational information. It is sponsored by ETA through a grant to the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Thus, if you are looking for current occupational information you should use the O*Net.

You should use the O*NET. 

___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, The O*NET --  SSA Says Do Not Use It -- But You Should, California Social Security Attorney (January 9, 2025) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

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

 

Aptitudes and Work Situations (Temperaments) -- SSA Says Do Not Consider Them

The Commissioner re-issued EM-21065 REV 2 effective January 6, 2025. EM-21065 follows the effective date of SSR 24-3p, removed references to SSR 00-4p, and made editorial changes. EM-21065 describes the SkillTRAN products (OccuBrowse, Job Browser Pro, and OASYS) as useful but does not replace policy, judgment, or decision-making. EM-21065 emphasizes that the SkillTRAN reports of aptitudes and work situations (temperaments) are not consistent with agency policy:

These ratings do not represent functional requirements for work because they reflect the personal interests, natural abilities, and personality characteristics of job incumbents rather than occupational requirements that adjudicators must consider when assessing the vocational impact of limitations or restrictions resulting from a medically determinable impairment(s), as is required for SSA’s disability programs.

SSA misapprehends the origin of aptitudes and temperaments. These data categories are not part of SkillTRAN products but are instead part of the DOT dataset. Every major reporter of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) dataset report aptitudes and temperaments. The Selected Characteristics of Occupations (SCO) is just that, a statement of selected characteristics. The selected characteristics implies that the dataset contains other characteristics that the Department of Labor did not select. The "unselected" characteristics include not only aptitudes and temperaments but also work fields and materials, products, subject matter, and services codes (necessary for transferable skills analysis). 

The Revised Handbook for Analyzing Jobs (DOL 1991) (RHAJ) explains all data fields used in the DOT, SCO, and the unselected characteristics. The RHAJ defines aptitudes in chapter 9. The RHAJ explains:

Every aptitude factor must be considered independently in the rating process for each job. The analyst estimates the level of each aptitude required of the worker for average, satisfactory performance based on a careful evaluation of the work activities of the job and the specific worker abilities which can be identified in terms of the aptitudes.

The RHAJ defines the 11 aptitudes:

General Learning Ability -- the ability to "catch on" or understand instructions and underlying principles. 

Verbal Aptitude -- the ability to understand the meaning of words and to use them effectively. 

Numerical Aptitude -- the ability to perform arithmetic operations quickly and accurately. 

Spatial Aptitude -- the ability to think visually of geometric forms and to comprehend two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional objects. 

Form Perception -- the ability to perceive pertinent detail in objects or in pictorial or graphic material. 

Clerical Perception -- the ability to perceive pertinent detail in verbal or tabular material.

Motor Coordination -- the ability to coordinate eyes and hands or fingers rapidly and accurately in making precise movements with speed. 

Finger Dexterity -- the ability to move the fingers and manipulate small objects with the fingers rapidly and accurately. 

Manual Dexterity -- the ability to move the hands easily and skillfully. 

Eye-Hand-Foot Coordination -- the ability to move the hand and foot coordinately with each other in accordance with visual stimuli. 

Color Discrimination -- The ability to match or discriminate between colors in terms of hue, saturation, and brilliance.

Each of these abilities pertain to specific work functions required of the ability to perform work activity. General learning ability relates to the ability to meet the bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ) of work, to become proficient within prescribed training periods. Coordination and dexterity relate to the ability to perform work tasks according to employer expectations. The 11 categories of aptitudes represent functional abilities whether naturally occurring or diminished by medically determinable impairments. 

Semi-skilled can require coordination and dexterity. 20 CFR § 404.1568(b). The ability to perform light work includes sedentary work unless the person has a loss of dexterity or inability to sit for long periods. 20 CFR § 404.1567(b). The aptitudes address the reasonable expectations of employers related to the BFOQ. 

The RHAJ explains temperaments in chapter 10:

Temperaments, a component of Worker Characteristics, are the adaptability requirements made on the worker by specific types of jobs. 

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.

EM-21065 focuses on personality traits ignoring the concept of the ability to adapt. The inability to adapt to work or vocational adaptability is grounded in the medical-vocational guidelines (the grids). Appendix 2 § 201.00(c) holds:

Vocational adjustment to sedentary work may be expected where the individual has special skills or experience relevant to sedentary work or where age and basic educational competences provide sufficient occupational mobility to adapt to the major segment of unskilled sedentary work. Inability to engage in substantial gainful activity would be indicated where an individual who is restricted to sedentary work because of a severe medically determinable impairment lacks special skills or experience relevant to sedentary work, lacks educational qualifications relevant to most sedentary work (e.g., has a limited education or less) and the individual's age, though not necessarily advanced, is a factor which significantly limits vocational adaptability.

Subsection (g) states that people closely approaching advanced age have limited vocational adaptability. See also §  202.00(c), (d). Vocational adjustment represents the correct inquiry in §§  201.00(c), (f), (g), (h), 202.00(b), (c), (f), 203(c). Vocational adjustment and adaptability is an important part of the step five analysis of the ability to successfully perform other work on a sustained basis. SSR 96-8p, 83-10 (the issue of work adjustment), 85-15, 83-11. The RHAJ definition of temperaments as related to the ability to adapt as including the concept of adjustment puts this category of the nature of work as compliant with the policy articulated by the regulations. 

Aptitudes and temperaments represent functional requirements and relate to the question of vocational adjustment and adaptability. These data points within the DOT dataset correlate with questions that arise in the sequential evaluation process and warrant pointed inquiry in appropriate cases. EM-21065 does not identify an ambiguity in the regulations and is inconsistent with the requirement that adjudicators take administrative notice of the requirements of unskilled work in the national economy. 

This is what happens when an agency chooses to legislate outside of formal or informal rulemaking processes. 

___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Aptitudes and Work Situations (Temperaments) -- SSA Says Do Not Consider Them, California Social Security Attorney (January 9, 2025) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

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

 

EM-21065 -- SSA Does Consider O*NET -- Kind of, Part 3

We pick up from the discussion of DPT and Temperaments and GED and Aptitudes.  EM-21065 says on interesting thing that is kind of helpful and also myopic:

O*NET information. The information in O*NET has been grouped in such a way that it is not readily usable in our adjudication process. The data is not as specific as the DOT and is not associated with individual DOT occupations. However, adjudicators may use O*NET coding to search for similar DOT occupations for a TSA assessment. See DI 25015.017.

The O*NET is not banned from consideration.  Nor can SSA ban reliable published governmental information.  That is the definition of the scope of administrative notice.   It is also axiomatic that "when an agency takes official or administrative notice of facts, a litigant must be given an adequate opportunity to respond."  Heckler v. Campbell.  

So let's test this proposition that the data in the O*NET is not as specific as the DOT and therefore not useful.  First, the DOT is a statement of the typical way in which an occupation is performed within local and employer variances.  DOT Appendix D.  Typical does not mean the majority of jobs.  M-W defines typical as "combining or exhibiting the essential characteristics of a group," "conforming to a type," or "constituting or having the nature of the type."  This would include the majority but also include a plurality or the median of a particular set.  The DOT is, by definition, a statistical fudge.  

So is the O*NET.  For well over 100 SOC-O*NET codes, the data describes a single DOT code.  Take telephone solicitor as an example.  It is the only DOT code in telemarketers.  The O*NET describes telemarketers as semi-skilled to skilled.  But the O*NET Resource Center describes telemarketers as overwhelmingly requiring less than 30 days of on-site training, on-the-job training, and related work experience.  The vast majority of telemarketers do not require more than a high school education.  The data suggests that telemarketers are typically unskilled.  We have heard the mantra, they just read from a script.  The O*NET tells the world that most telemarketers work less than 40 hours per week.  Most telemarketers work in groups or teams and all have more than occasional contact or interactions with others.  The data in the O*NET is more specific.  

Hand packager is another good example.  The DOT never states the amount of sitting or standing/walking required, except for sedentary work is at least 5.7 hours per day.  The O*NET  states that hand packagers never sit in 50% of jobs.  That is important information when a person has a 6.0 hour standing/walking limitation.  There are 59 DOT codes but this is good information about how packers typically work and to explore the vocational witness's understanding of how much standing/ walking packagers actually do and how the VW acquired that information.  

When it comes to the nature and requirements of work, SSA is not the expert agency.  SSA's expertise is the medical evidence and the nature of impairments.  There, the agency gets deference.  In terms of occupational information, SSA must get that information from one or two agencies:  the Department of Labor and the Census Bureau.  What does DOL say about the DOT and the O*NET?  This:

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) was created under the sponsorship by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), and was last updated in 1991. The DOT was replaced by the O*Net, and ETA no longer supports the DOT.

The O*Net is now the primary source of occupational information. It is sponsored by ETA through a grant to the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Thus, if you are looking for current occupational information you should use the O*Net.

The DOT was loaded onto the OALJ website because it was a standard reference in several types of cases adjudicated by the OALJ, especially immigration related matters. Time has passed, DOL’s regulations have changed, and OALJ now rarely adjudicates cases that reference the DOT.

So, why is the DOT still on the Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ) website? It is because the DOT is still used in Social Security disability adjudications and the OALJ copy of the DOT is often cited as an authoritative source of the DOT.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is developing a new Occupational Information System (OIS), which will replace the DOT as the primary source of occupational information for use in the SSA disability adjudication process. SSA intends to have the OIS operational and to make necessary regulatory and policy updates by 2020.

Because the EM comes form the non-expert agency, it fails the basic deference test.  Kisor v. Wilkie.  When we want information about the requirements of work in the national economy, we should always use the most recent DOL published information.  

That takes us to the rub.  The VW has local experience.  The VW projects to the nation what the VW saw one time in a plant or office 20 years ago or assumes that the accommodation that VW worked out with an employer for one person 15 years ago is the norm.  The VW must answer the question and explain how the witness "extrapolat[es] those findings to the national economy by means of a well-accepted methodology."  The VW never has one.  The courts and the agency have swallowed the Kool-Aid that any VW appearing at the hearing is doing anything other than flying by the seat of his/her pants.  Administrative notice is the basic concept of establishing the number of jobs and the requirements of those jobs.  The O*NET serves that purpose.  A VW can help interpret that data, but even that assumes that the VW has statistical training.  They don't.  

_______________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, EM-21065 -- SSA Does Consider O*NET -- Kind of, Part 3, California Social Security Attorney (July 1, 2022) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

EM-21065 -- SSA Does Not Consider GED or Aptitudes -- Oh Really, Part 2

We pick up from the discussion of DPT and Temperaments earlier this week.  EM-21065 says more disturbing and misguided things about GED and aptitudes:

SSA does not use General Education Development (GED), Aptitudes, and frequency counts or percentages in adjudication.

Later, EM-21065 says: 

Only use SVP to determine the demands of work. SSA does not consider GED or Aptitudes to identify the demands of work for disability adjudication in SSA’s disability programs.

Continuing:   

SSA does not consider the descriptors of GED, Aptitudes, Work Situations (Temperaments), or Work Functions (DPT) when searching for a person’s past work or when limiting work demand requirements for a search of occupations for a TSA or occupations to cite for a framework determination or decision. We should not use these features since our policy does not use these descriptors to identify the demands of work for disability adjudication in SSA’s disability programs.

And finally: 

1. SSA does not consider the following information:

General Education Development (GED) ratings. These ratings do not correspond with SSA’s regulatory definitions of unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled work.

Aptitudes and Work Situations (Temperaments). These ratings do not represent functional requirements for work because they reflect the personal interests, natural abilities, and personality characteristics of job incumbents rather than limitations or restrictions resulting from a medically determinable impairment(s), as is required for SSA’s disability programs.

We start with GED, general educational development.  This is a specification of reasoning, mathematics, and language in the DOT trailer with a three digit code.  Appendix C of the DOT describes the category:

General Educational Development embraces those aspects of education (formal and informal) which are required of the worker for satisfactory job performance. This is education of a general nature which does not have a recognized, fairly specific occupational objective. Ordinarily, such education is obtained in elementary school, high school, or college. However, it may be obtained from experience and self-study.

GED describes the educational level required for satisfactory job performance.  These are bona fide occupational qualifications for the integral, essential, and expected job functions.  The statute commands the Commissioner to consider education.  Many unskilled jobs do require a high school education or equivalent.  It is true that GED does not correlate 1:1 to skill level.  

There are 16 DOT codes classified as semi-skilled that require reasoning level 1.  There are 1,887 DOT codes classified as semi-skilled and skilled that require reasoning level 2.  The regulations include in semi-skilled that is not academically challenging:  

A job may be classified as semi-skilled where coordination and dexterity are necessary, as when hands or feet must be moved quickly to do repetitive tasks.

Those are the exceptions.  Of the approximately 10,000 skilled and semi-skilled occupations, the majority require reasoning level 4 or higher.  Nor does correlation have to be 1:1 to be informative about the requirements of work.  

Aptitudes represents a different challenge.  As with temperaments, the aptitudes were not "selected" for inclusion in the SCO.  Aptitudes are part of the DOT dataset defined in the Revised Handbook for Analyzing Jobs.  The RHAJ defines:

Aptitudes: Capacities or abilities required of an individual in order to facilitate the learning of some task or job duty. The II Aptitudes included in this component are defined and discussed in Chapter 9.

There is that pesky description, again: required.  In Chapter 9, the RHAJ expands on the definition:

Aptitudes, a component of Worker Characteristics, are the capacities or specific abilities which an individual must have in order to learn to perform a given work activity. There are II Aptitudes used by USES for job analysis. Nine Aptitudes are measured by the United States Employment Service's General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB). Two others, Eye-Hand-Foot Coordination and Color Discrimination, have been added to these for job analysis because they are considered to be occupationally significant. Measurements for these Aptitudes have not been developed for the GATB. 

These are not nice to have, aptitudes are the ability that "an individual must have in order to learn to perform a given work activity."  Employers require aptitudes that a person must have to learn how to perform the BFOQ or essential functions of a job.  Absent those aptitudes, a person is not expected to learn how to do the job.  Aptitudes represent an educational component of work.  

SSA is not the expert agency about the requirements of work.  The Department of Labor is the expert agency about the requirements of work.  When we need information about what is and is not required in the workplace, DOL is the source of that information.  EM-21065 warrants no deference and no respect under controlling court precedent.  

_______________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, EM-21065 -- SSA Does Not Consider GED or Aptitudes -- Oh Really, Part 2, California Social Security Attorney (June 29, 2022) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

EM-21065 -- SSA Does Not Consider DPT or Temperaments -- Oh Really, Part 1

SSA published an emergency message in October 2021 covering OccuBrowse and occupational information in electronic tools. It is my understanding that OccuBrowse is a transferable skills analysis tool that does not estimate job numbers by DOT code. We are concerned primarily with unskilled work and the job numbers associated with those DOT codes.

EM-21065 covers OccuBrowse, Job Browser Pro (JBP), and OASYS in the background information (paragraph B). The EM addresses JBP: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.

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