MEDICAL-VOCATIONAL-GUIDELINES (THE GRIDS) BREAKDOWN Flashcards
CFR § 404.1569a. Exertional and nonexertional limitations
(a) General
§ 404.1569a. Exertional and nonexertional limitations.
(a) General.
Your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, may cause limitations of function or restrictions which limit your ability to meet certain demands of jobs. These limitations may be exertional, nonexertional, or a combination of both. Limitations are classified as exertional if they affect your ability to meet the strength demands of jobs. The classification of a limitation as exertional is related to the United States Department of Labor’s classification of jobs by various exertional levels (sedentary, light, medium, heavy, and very heavy) in terms of the strength demands for sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling. Sections 404.1567 and 404.1569 explain how we use the classification of jobs by exertional levels (strength demands) which is contained in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles published by the Department of Labor, to determine the exertional requirements of work which exists in the national economy. Limitations or restrictions which affect your ability to meet the demands of jobs other than the strength demands, that is, demands other than sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling, are considered nonexertional. When we decide whether you can do your past relevant work ( see §§ 404.1520(f) and 404.1594(f)(7)), we will compare our assessment of your residual functional capacity with the demands of your past relevant work. If you cannot do your past relevant work, we will use the same residual functional capacity assessment along with your age, education, and work experience to decide if you can adjust to any other work which exists in the national economy. ( See §§ 404.1520(g) and 404.1594(f)(8).) Paragraphs (b), (c), and (d) of this section explain how we apply the medical-vocational guidelines in appendix 2 of this subpart in making this determination, depending on whether the limitations or restrictions imposed by your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, are exertional, nonexertional, or a combination of both.
CFR § 404.1569a.
(b)Exertional and nonexertional limitations
(b) Exertional limitations. When the limitations and restrictions imposed by your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, affect only your ability to meet the strength demands of jobs (sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling), we consider that you have only exertional limitations. When your impairment(s) and related symptoms only impose exertional limitations and your specific vocational profile is listed in a rule contained in appendix 2 of this subpart, we will directly apply that rule to decide whether you are disabled.
CFR § 404.1569a.
(c) Nonexertional limitations
(c) Nonexertional limitations. (1) When the limitations and restrictions imposed by your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, affect only your ability to meet the demands of jobs other than the strength demands, we consider that you have only nonexertional limitations or restrictions. Some examples of nonexertional limitations or restrictions include the following:
(i) You have difficulty functioning because you are nervous, anxious, or depressed;
(ii) You have difficulty maintaining attention or concentrating;
(iii) You have difficulty understanding or remembering detailed instructions;
(iv) You have difficulty in seeing or hearing;
(v) You have difficulty tolerating some physical feature(s) of certain work settings, e.g., you cannot tolerate dust or fumes; or
(vi) You have difficulty performing the manipulative or postural functions of some work such as reaching, handling, stooping, climbing, crawling, or crouching.
(2) If your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, only affect your ability to perform the nonexertional aspects of work-related activities, the rules in appendix 2 do not direct factual conclusions of disabled or not disabled. The determination as to whether disability exists will be based on the principles in the appropriate sections of the regulations, giving consideration to the rules for specific case situations in appendix 2.
CFR § 404.1569a.
(d) Combined exertional and nonexertional limitations.
(d) Combined exertional and nonexertional limitations. When the limitations and restrictions imposed by your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, affect your ability to meet both the strength and demands of jobs other than the strength demands, we consider that you have a combination of exertional and nonexertional limitations or restrictions. If your impairment(s) and related symptoms, such as pain, affect your ability to meet both the strength and demands of jobs other than the strength demands, we will not directly apply the rules in appendix 2 unless there is a rule that directs a conclusion that you are disabled based upon your strength limitations; otherwise the rules provide a framework to guide our decision.
WHAT IS CFR § 404.1569a. ?
Exertional and nonexertional limitations
WHAT IS CFR § 404.1569a. (a) ?
(a) General
WHAT IS CFR § 404.1569a. (b) ?
(b) Exertional limitations.
WHAT IS CFR § 404.1569a. (c) ?
(c) Nonexertional limitations.
WHAT IS CFR § 404.1569a. (d) ?
(d) Combined exertional and nonexertional limitations.
STEP 4: PAST RELEVANT WORK - GENERALLY
In the usual case, attention will focus on steps 4 and 5 of the sequential evaluation process. At step 4 the claimant has the burden of proving that he or she is incapable of doing any “past relevant work.”
STEP 4: PAST RELEVANT WORK - WHAT QUALIFIES AS “PAST RELEVANT WORK”?
- The job must have been performed within:
a. 15 years prior to adjudication; or
b. if insured status has lapsed, 15 years prior to the dat last insured, 20 CFR Sect. 404.1565(a). - The job must have been “substantial gainful activity.” 20 CFR Sect. 404.1565(a). That is,
a. Th job must have involved doing significant physical or mental activities, 20 CFR Sect 404.1572(a); and
b. it must have been done at the SGA level. See 20 CFR sects. 404.157401575. - The job must have lasted long enough for the claimant to develop the facility needed for average performance. See 20 CFR Sect 404.1566(a) and SSR 82-62.
NOTE: A job qualifies as past relevant work even if the job was done only part-time, as long as it was substantial gainful activity. SSR 96-8p, foot note 2. Thus, you have to identify the claimant’s easiest full or part time past relevant job and then figure out why the claimant cannot still do it. If the claimant had an easy job in the past 15 years that he or she can still do, the claimant will be fond not disabled, unless you can put an argument together that the impairments meet or medically equal one of the impairments in the Listing of Impairments.
You must prove that your client cannot do a past relevant job even if that job no long exists in the economy, an SSA position that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Barnhart v. Thomas, 540 U.S. 20 (2003).
In addition, if a claimant retains the capacity to do a past relevant job as it is ordinarily done, the claimant will be found not disabled even though the claimant’s actual past job required greater exertion and the claimant is unable to do that particular job See Social Security Ruling 82061. The “job as it is ordinarily done” rule will not be applied to a claimant’s benefit, however. Fi a claimant’s own past work was easier than the way the job is ordinarily done, even if an employer accommodated the claimant’s disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act , SSA will examine the actual job requirements as the claimant performed them in determining whether the whether the claimant can perform past relevant work. See SSR 82-62
Determining whether a claimant can do past relevant work is accomplished by comparing the claimant’s current residual functional capacity with the physical and mental demands of past relevant work. 20 CFR Sect. 404.1520(f) and SSR 82-62.
STEP 5: OTHER WORK
Once you have prove that the claimant cannot perform past relevant work, you move on to the most complicated step – determining whether the claimant can make an adjustment to other work that exists in significant numbers in the national economy, considering the claimant’s remaining work capacity, age, education and work experience. SSA has provided an important tool for determining whether a claimant is or is not disabled because of medical impairments and vocational factors: the Medical-Vocational Guidelines. The Medical-Vocational Guidelines, popularly know as the “grids,” provide that the older a claimant is, the easier it is to be found disabled.
Thus, hypothetically, a housewife could be found disabled despite the remaining physical capacity to do most jobs in the economy (sedentary, light and medium work) because of the adversity of age (55), education(less than a high school graduate), and work experience (non in the past 15 years) See Rule 203.10 of the Medical-Vocational Guidelines. Indeed, this rule may still be applied if “the work activity performed within this 15-year period does not (on the basis of job content, recency, or duration) enhance present work capability.” SSR 82-63
