The Five-Step Disability Evaluation, Step by Step

What are the five steps of the disability evaluation?

The five steps are work activity, medical severity, the listings, past relevant work and other work, and the Social Security Administration (SSA) takes them in that order. The regulation at 20 CFR 404.1520 calls this the sequential evaluation process, “a series of five steps that we follow in a set order.” If SSA can find you disabled or not disabled at a step, it makes the decision there and does not go on to the next one.

1. Work activity. If you are doing substantial gainful activity, SSA finds you not disabled.
2. Medical severity. If you do not have a severe medically determinable impairment that meets the duration requirement, SSA finds you not disabled.
3. The listings. If your impairment meets or equals a listing in appendix 1 and meets the duration requirement, SSA finds you disabled.
4. Past relevant work. If your residual functional capacity still lets you do your past relevant work, SSA finds you not disabled.
5. Other work. SSA weighs your residual functional capacity with your age, education and work experience. If you can adjust to other work, you are not disabled. If you cannot, you are disabled.

The regulation also says SSA will consider all evidence in your case record when it decides whether you are disabled. That rule applies at every step, not only the medical ones.

Back to contents

Steps one and two: work activity and disability severity

Step one asks whether you are working at the level SSA calls substantial gainful activity (SGA), and step two asks whether your condition is severe enough and lasting enough to matter. Both steps can end a claim. Neither can approve one.

At step one, the earnings line SSA applies changes every year. For 2026, the monthly SGA amount is $1,690 for non-blind workers and $2,830 for statutorily blind workers, according to SSA's SGA table. Under 20 CFR 404.1520(b), if you are doing SGA, SSA finds you not disabled regardless of your medical condition, age, education or work experience. Our post on substantial gainful activity covers how SSA counts work and earnings.

Step two is a threshold, not a full medical review. Under 20 CFR 404.1522, an impairment is not severe if it does not “significantly limit your physical or mental ability to do basic work activities.” SSA defines basic work activities as the abilities and aptitudes needed for most jobs, such as:

• Walking, standing, sitting, lifting, pushing, pulling, reaching, carrying or handling.
• Seeing, hearing and speaking.
• Understanding, carrying out and remembering simple instructions.
• Using judgment.
• Responding appropriately to supervision, co-workers and usual work situations.
• Dealing with changes in a routine work setting.

The impairment must also meet the duration requirement in 20 CFR 404.1509. Unless it is expected to result in death, it must have lasted or be expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months. A condition that is serious but expected to resolve inside a year does not pass step two.

Back to contents

Step three: meeting or equaling a disability listing

Step three approves a claim on medical grounds alone when your impairment meets or equals one of SSA's listings and meets the duration requirement. The listings sit in appendix 1 to subpart P of 20 CFR Part 404.

Each listing spells out specific medical findings for a body system or condition. Under 20 CFR 404.1520(d), if your impairment matches a listing, or is medically equal to one, SSA finds you disabled without considering your age, education or work experience. That is the only step where a claim can be approved on the medical record alone.

Step three is a door that opens wide or stays shut. A listing is exact, and a file that comes close to the criteria without meeting or equaling them does not pass here. Coming close does not end the claim, though. It sends the claim on to the residual functional capacity assessment. Our condition pages walk through the listing that applies to each condition and what the medical evidence has to show.

Back to contents

How your RFC decides steps four and five

If no listing is met or equaled, SSA assesses your residual functional capacity (RFC) and uses that one assessment at both step four and step five. Under 20 CFR 404.1545(a)(3), the RFC comes from all the relevant medical and other evidence in your record.

The regulation defines it in one line: “Your residual functional capacity is the most you can still do despite your limitations,” per 20 CFR 404.1545. It is not a diagnosis. It is a description of capacity, such as how long you can stand, how much you can lift, and how well you can stay on task. Our post on residual functional capacity covers what goes into it.

At step four, SSA compares your RFC with the demands of your past relevant work. Under 20 CFR 404.1560(b)(1), past relevant work is work you did within the past five years that was SGA and lasted long enough for you to learn to do it. If your RFC still allows that work, the claim ends there.

At step five, SSA adds your age, education and work experience to the RFC and asks whether you can adjust to other work. Here the regulation shifts responsibility to SSA: under 20 CFR 404.1560(c)(2), SSA is responsible for providing evidence that other work exists in significant numbers in the national economy that you can do. Section 404.1520(g) also points to two special medical-vocational profiles in 20 CFR 404.1562 that result in a disability finding. Our post on medical-vocational allowances explains how step five approvals work.

Back to contents

Where disability claims are decided within the five steps

The regulation itself shows where the weight sits: for any claim that clears step two without meeting a listing, the RFC drives the outcome, measured against past work at step four and combined with age, education and work experience at step five. We frame it from the rule, not from statistics, because the structure is the same for every adult claim.

Look at what each step can do. Steps one and two can only deny. Step three can only approve, and only on exact listing criteria. Step four can only deny. Step five can do either, and steps four and five run on the same RFC. A claim that is not decided by earnings, a short-lived condition, or a listing has one assessment left carrying it into two steps.

A strong diagnosis is the start of the file, not the whole file. What carries a claim through steps four and five is evidence of function: treatment notes that describe limits, test results, and opinions that tie those limits to work. SSA's own rule makes the RFC the hinge, so that is where the evidence has to be strongest.

The same sequence appears in the SSI rules at 20 CFR 416.920, so the analysis does not change with the program. If a claim ends at any of these steps, you have 60 days after you receive the notice to request reconsideration under 20 CFR 404.909. Our page on disability denials covers what to do next.

Back to contents