How a Medical-Vocational Allowance Works Under the SSA Grids

What are the grid rules in a disability claim?

Appendix 2 to Subpart P of Part 404 holds three tables, one each for sedentary, light and medium work, and each row pairs an age, an education level and a work history with a decision. SSA calls these the medical-vocational guidelines. They are often called the grids. Table 1 covers sedentary work in rules 201.01 through 201.29, Table 2 covers light work in rules 202.01 through 202.22, and Table 3 covers medium work in rules 203.01 through 203.31.

The grids come into play at step 5 of the five-step evaluation, after SSA has found that you cannot do your past relevant work. Your residual functional capacity (RFC), meaning SSA's finding of the most you can still do, picks the table. Our guide to residual functional capacity explains how that finding is built.

Under section 200.00(a) of Appendix 2, when the findings about you match every criterion in a rule, the rule directs the conclusion, disabled or not disabled. If any finding does not match, that rule does not apply. The grids work like a tax table: you find your row by three facts and read the result in the last column. Section 200.00(b) explains why no job-by-job proof is needed when a rule fits. SSA has taken administrative notice of the numbers of unskilled jobs that exist throughout the national economy, and the decisions in the tables already reflect them.

The appendix gives a sense of scale. Section 201.00(a) says approximately 200 separate unskilled sedentary occupations can be identified. Section 202.00(a) says approximately 1,600 separate sedentary and light unskilled occupations can be identified. The smaller your remaining range of work, the fewer of those occupations stay open.

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How age, education and past work interact with your disability RFC

Your RFC picks the table, and your age, education and work history pick the row. Under 20 CFR 404.1560, step 5 asks whether you can adjust to other work that exists in significant numbers in the national economy, and SSA carries the burden of providing evidence that such work exists.

Education is measured in categories under 20 CFR 404.1564:

The regulation recognizes that a grade level may not reflect your real abilities, which can be higher or lower. If no other evidence contradicts it, SSA uses your numerical grade level.

Work history is measured by skill level. Under section 404.1565, SSA generally looks at work you did within the last five years, at the substantial gainful activity level, that lasted long enough for you to learn it. Section 404.1568 sorts that work into three levels. Unskilled work needs little or no judgment and can be learned on the job in a short period, and it does not give you work skills. Semi-skilled work needs some skill but not the more complex duties. Skilled work requires judgment, such as setting up operations, reading blueprints, making precise measurements, or working with complex people, facts or ideas.

Age is never used alone. Section 404.1563(a) says SSA considers age together with RFC, education and work experience, and treats advancing age as an increasingly limiting factor in your ability to adjust to other work.

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Social Security age categories for disability claims

SSA uses three age categories, with a further label for people 60 and older. They come from 20 CFR 404.1563:

The categories are not applied mechanically at the edges. Under section 404.1563(b), if you are within a few days to a few months of the next category, and using the older category would result in a finding of disabled, SSA considers whether to use it after weighing all the factors in your case.

The same facts can produce different rules at different ages. Rule 201.12 covers a person closely approaching advanced age, limited to sedentary work, with a high school education or more that does not provide for direct entry into skilled work, and with unskilled work or none in the past. That rule directs a finding of disabled. Rule 202.06 covers a person of advanced age, limited to light work, with the same education and skilled or semiskilled work whose skills do not transfer, and it also directs disabled. Move that second person back into the 50 to 54 bracket, under Rule 202.14, and the light-work table directs not disabled.

For younger claimants, we would rather say the hard part first. Section 201.00(i) says a full range of sedentary work provides “substantial vocational scope” for people age 18 to 44, even if they are illiterate. Under 50, the medical-vocational path tends to run through limits the grids do not measure, which the last section of this post covers.

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How transferable skills affect a disability claim at step 5

Transferable skills are skills from your skilled or semi-skilled past work that SSA finds you can use in other skilled or semi-skilled jobs, and they can move you from a rule that directs disabled to one that does not. Under 20 CFR 404.1568(d), transfer is most probable among jobs where:

• The same or a lesser degree of skill is required
• The same or similar tools and machines are used
• The same or similar raw materials, products, processes or services are involved

A complete match on all three is not required. Skills learned in highly isolated settings, such as some mining, agriculture or fishing jobs, may be treated as not transferable.

The rules tighten with age. If you are 55 or older and limited to sedentary or light work, SSA generally cannot find that you can adjust to other work unless you have transferable skills. For sedentary limits at that age, skills transfer only if the new work is so similar to your past work that you would need very little vocational adjustment. If you are 60 or older and limited to light work, the same very-little-adjustment test applies to light jobs.

Unskilled work never produces transferable skills, because the regulation says you do not gain work skills from it. Section 404.1565 adds a related rule: if you cannot use the skills you have in other skilled or semi-skilled work you can now do, your background is treated as unskilled.

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When the grid rules do not decide your disability claim

The grids decide a claim on their own only when your limits are purely about strength. Section 404.1569a sorts limits into exertional ones, which affect sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing and pulling, and nonexertional ones, such as trouble concentrating, anxiety or depression, vision or hearing loss, intolerance of dust or fumes, and difficulty reaching, handling or stooping.

If your limits are only nonexertional, the rules do not direct a finding of disabled or not disabled. If you have both kinds, the rules are not applied directly unless a rule directs disabled on strength limits alone. Otherwise, as section 200.00(e)(2) of Appendix 2 puts it, the rules “provide a framework” for deciding how much your work capability is further reduced.

Vocational evidence fills that gap. A grid rule that says not disabled on strength alone is not the end of the analysis when a mental or manipulative limit takes away part of the remaining job base. In those cases, SSA needs vocational evidence about which jobs, if any, survive your full set of limits, and our guide to vocational expert testimony explains how that evidence comes in. If you are still early in the process, our SSDI claims page covers the claim from the start.

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