The fact that you are unable to do your present work is one of the criteria that your Social Security Disability attorney will have to show in order for you to be accepted for Social Security Disability (SSDI) payments.
To put it another way, your medical condition must be severe enough to interfere with your capacity to do job-related duties. Even if you are unable to do your current job, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will consider other forms of employment you may be capable of. To make this judgment, the SSA looks at your previous job’s skill level to see what alternative occupations you might be able to accomplish given your present medical condition.
The Importance of Giving Accurate Information
When filing for SSDI benefits, it’s critical to accurately describe your job duties since the SSA will use this information to assign a skill level to your employment. Your Social Security Disability attorney can assist you in drafting a description of the employment tasks you performed and the time it took you to learn them.
There Are Three Major Skill Levels
In order to make this assessment, the SSA uses three major skill levels. They’re divided into groups based on how long it takes to learn how to do the job and the job’s features. The following are the categories:
- Unskilled: Work that needs little to no judgment and the completion of very basic tasks. This sort of labor generally takes less than a month to learn and demands a lot of strength. Unskilled labor does not always assist a person in developing specialized job skills.
- Semi-Skilled: this profession does not need complex job responsibilities, but it does necessitate job abilities such as attention to detail, coordination, and manual dexterity. Semi-skilled jobs are those that need people to execute repetitive activities on a regular basis. Learning these professions usually takes three to six months.
- Skilled: this sort of job needs some judgment as well as a working understanding of mechanical and manual activities. This expertise is often applied to either providing a service or creating a product. Jobs that need a worker to interact closely with other employees, or to deal with ideas, facts, or figures, are examples of semi-skilled labor.
The SSA utilizes the Specific Vocational Preparation, or SVP, grading system, which is based on the length of training a worker has undergone. Unskilled occupations require up to one month of training, semi-skilled jobs require one to six months of training, and skilled positions require more than six months of training.
Using the SVP for your previous job or occupations, the SSA will evaluate if there is any alternative work that you can undertake that is either at the same skill level or lower, given your medical condition. As a result, the higher your SSA-assigned skill level, the more difficult it may be to receive benefits.
If you are having a hard time getting the SSDI benefits you are owed, or if you simply want advice about your application from an employment lawyer, contact PLBH at (800) 435-7542 for help.