Everyone has a picture that comes to mind when they hear the word “disabled.”  Maybe it’s an image of someone who is bedridden or who has to use a wheelchair to get around, or someone who is incapacitated for the rest of their life.  Under the Social Security Administration’s rules, however, there are few “cut and dried” rules for determining whether someone is “disabled.”  Rather, the adjudicator (either a disability examiner or an Administrative Law Judge) goes through a sequential evaluation process to determine whether you are disabled:

1. Are you working? The adjudicator will first look at whether you are engaged in what it calls “Substantial Gainful Activity,” or SGA.  Every year, SSA comes up with a specific dollar figure as a sort of shortcut for determining whether a claimant is engaged in SGA.  If you are employed and are making more than the SGA amount ($980/month for 2009, $1,000 for 2010), your claim will be denied.  For self-employed claimants, the adjudicator looks at more than just your monthly earnings (because your income may not be an accurate reflection of the value of your work to your business).  If it is determined that you are not engaged in SGA, the adjudicator goes on to the next question.
   
2. Do you have a severe medical impairment that interferes with basic work-related activities? If your condition is not “severe,” the adjudicator will find that you are not disabled.   “Severe” means that your impairment has more than a slight or minimal impact on your ability to work.  Your impairment also must last, or be expected to last, for at least 12 months for you to be found disabled.
   
3. Is your Impairment found in the Listing of Impairments? SSA maintains a list of medical conditions that it considers to be so severe that they result in an automatic finding of disability. A link to the Listing of Impairments can be found here.   http://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/index.htm If your condition is on the list (or found to be equally severe as a condition that is on the list), you will be found disabled.  If not, the adjudicator goes on to the next step.
   
4. Does your condition prevent you from doing your prior work? At this step of the process, the adjudicator assesses your remaining ability to do basic work activities (which is referred to as your “Residual Functional Capacity,” or RFC).  The adjudicator then compares this RFC to the demands of  the jobs that you have done over the past 15 years.  If the adjudicator decides that you can still do any of the jobs that you did during the past 15 years, your claim will be denied, regardless of whether you have any chance of actually getting those  jobs back.   The fact that your former employers are located in a different state, would never rehire you, or have gone out of business is therefore  irrelevant  to this inquiry.   If the adjudicator decides that your condition prevents you from doing your prior work, the inquiry proceeds to the last step.
   
5. Can you do any other type of work? In this last step, the adjudicator determines whether you could adjust to other work, given your medical condition, age, education, work experience, and transferrable work skills.  If the adjudicator determines that you cannot adjust to other work, your claim will be approved. If the adjudicator determines that you should be able to adjust to other work, your claim will be denied.  Judges often consult Vocational Experts to assist them in identifying other work that a claimant is capable of doing.   If the ALJ accepts the expert’s opinion that you can do certain types of work, it doesn’t matter whether the identified work exists in your immediate area, whether a specific job vacancy exists, or whether you actually would be hired if you applied for work.  The fact that you would never agree to do that type of work (because it is too boring, too demeaning, pays too little, etc.) also doesn’t matter.   This is an area in which an attorney can make a big difference in the outcome of your case by asking the right questions of the vocational expert on cross-examination to “whittle away” the jobs that the expert has identified as being within your RFC.