There is no excuse for this
The only reason they could be this inept is if they are looking for reasons to deny disability benefits to people who need them. (And yes, I’m sure there are people who have abused the system, but that doesn’t make this ok.)
He had made it through four years of denials and appeals, and Robert Heard was finally before a Social Security judge who would decide whether he qualified for disability benefits. Two debilitating strokes had left the 47-year-old electrician with halting speech, an enlarged heart and violent tremors.
There was just one final step: A vocational expert hired by the Social Security Administration had to tell the judge if there was any work Heard could still do despite his condition. Heard was stunned as the expert canvassedhis computer and announced his findings: He could find work as a nut sorter, a dowel inspector or an egg processor —jobs that virtually no longer exist in the United States.
“Whatever it is that does those things, machines do it now,” said Heard, who lives on food stamps and a small stipend from his parents in a subsidized apartment in Tullahoma, Tenn. “Honestly, if they could see my shaking, they would see I couldn’t sort any nuts. I’d spill them all over the floor.”
He was still hopeful the administrative law judge hearing his claim for $1,300 to $1,700 per month in benefits had understood his limitations.
But while the judge agreed that Heard had multiple, severe impairments, he denied him benefits, writing that he had “job opportunities” in three occupations that are nearly obsolete and agreeing with the expert’s dubiousclaim that 130,000 positions were still available sorting nuts, inspecting dowels and processing eggs.
Every year, thousands of claimants like Heard find themselves blocked at this crucial last step in the arduous process of applying for disability benefits, thanks to labor market data that was last updated 45 years ago.
The jobs are spelled out in an exhaustive publication known as the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The vast majority of the 12,700 entries were last updated in 1977. The Department of Labor, which originally compiled the index, abandoned it 31 years agoin a sign ofthe economy’s shiftfrom blue-collar manufacturing to information and services.
Social Security, though, still relies on it at the final stage when a claim is reviewed. Thegovernment, using strict vocational rules, assesses someone’s capacity to work and if jobs exist “in significant numbers”that they could still do. The dictionaryremains the backbone of a $200 billion disability system that provides benefits to 15 million people.
It lists 137 unskilled, sedentary jobs — jobs that most closely match the skills and limitations of those who apply for disability benefits. But in reality, most of these occupations were offshored, outsourced, and shifted to skilled work decades ago. Many have disappeared altogether.
This is ridiculous. Apparently, the rolls have shrunk dramatically in recent years (which makes little sense to me.) If that’s true it means that a lot of disabled people have just fallen through the cracks. That $1500 a month wouldn’t have been enough in the first place but it could have saved lives.
This whole thing makes me sad. Why are we so unwilling to ensure that everyone in this vastly wealthy country has at least a basic subsistence income? Why can’t we take proper care of sick people? So much money and so little compassion…