What is the Five Step Social Security Disability Evaluation Process?

 Posted on October 17,2009 in Social Security Disability

What is the five step, sequential Social Security disability evaluation process? The five step Social Security disability evaluation process is what your attorney or claimants representative needs to argue in order to win your disability benefits claim. The five step, sequential process is argued the same for every disability claim and is as follows:

Step One: Are you working? Are you performing SGA?

If your earnings average more than $1,350 per month gross in 2022, or $2,260 per month if you are blind, then the Social Security Administration will consider you as working at a Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) level and will not find you to be disabled. Even if you have a disabling condition, if you are working at a SGA level, you will not be considered to be disabled by the SSA. It is important to note that the income that is counted for this step is from your actual wages.

Step Two: Is your condition "severe"?

The SSA will consider your impairment or combination of impairments severe if it interferes with basic work related activity. Your impairment or combination of impairments must be severe enough to last for at least a twelve month period.

Step Three: Does your condition meet or exceed a listed impairment?

If your injury or impairment is severe enough to meet the requirements of a listed impairment you will meet the third step of the Social Security evaluation process. The SSA issues the "Blue Book," a list of impairments that specifically details the severity an impairment needs to be considered disabling. Not only are the listings very specific and detailed, but it is very difficult to actually fit into one of the listings. SSA will look at your impairment and if it does not meet the required listing, they will then determine if your condition is equal to the severity of one of the listed impairments. On the other hand, if you meet the required listing, then you will meet the third step of the sequential process. The Blue Book can be found on the Administration's web site at www.ssa.gov.

Step Four: Can you do previous work? (The RFC rule)

SSA may determine that your condition is severe but nonetheless decide that it does not meet or equal a required listing. If that is the case, then SSA will decide if your impairment prevents you from being able to perform your past work. Social Security wants to know what your Residual Functional Capacity is (your RFC). Your RFC is the most that you can do despite all of your limitations. In general, if you can perform some of your past SGA work from the last fifteen years, then you will not be adjudicated as disabled.

Step Five: Social Security will determine if you can do any other work.

Even if you are unable to perform any of the jobs you have had in the previous fifteen years, Social Security can still deny your disability if the Administration can prove that there is a significant number of jobs in the local or national economy that you can perform. In this final step, Social Security will consider your age, education, and past work experience. The rules that apply to this step change depending on how old you are. In general, if you are over 50 years old the rules become easier but you would still have to eliminate most of the jobs in the economy to win your disability claim.