What is Past Relevant Work in A Social Security Disability Claim?

Past relevant work and your Social Security Disability claim. Past relevant work is a term of art in the Social Security Disability world. What it means is that the work that you have done for the fifteen years prior to your application. If you can return to the lightest job you have held in the last fifteen years, your Social Security Disability claim will be denied! See how easily you can screw up your Social Security Disability application.

You can make many mistakes in the initial Social Security Disability application but one of the most crucial involves your responses to questions about your past work.

To be eligible for Social Security Disability benefits the Social Security Administration will look at the kind of work you have done in the fifteen years prior to your application. If you can return to the lightest job that you have help in the last fifteen years, the Social Security Administration will deny your claim on the basis that you can return to your “past relevant work”.

The Social Security Administration will also ask whether or not there is a job that exists in the national economy based on your age, education and work history. And the level of physical functioning you are capable of doing.

Many people just screw up their Social Security Disability application because they don’t understand the importance of past relevant work.

What do I mean?

The Social Security Disability application will ask you about the past relevant that you have done by asking you what your “title” was and your job duties.

Many people try to embellish and make their job sound more important than it really was.

So for example, if you were a garbage man to embellish the job you might say you were a “sanitation engineer”. While they may actually be the same jobs, the titles are different and the Social Security Administration will use a book called the Dictionary of Occupation Titles to look up the various job duties. Obviously, an “engineer” is one in which would have many skills that would be transferable to all sorts of different occupations. You’d be able to calculate things, organize things, do drawings. On the other hand, a garbage collector gets on and off his garbage truck, picks up garbage cans and disposes the garbage and returns them to the street. There is a world of difference between those two jobs.

So, one of the first and foremost mistakes you can make is embellishing your job title. That can come back and bite you because the Social Security Administration will find if you have been an engineer, that you have transferable skills and that alone is grounds to deny your claim for Social Security Disability benefits.

At Cavey and Barrett, your Tampa Social Security Disability attorneys, we urge you to be honest. Honest with what your job title was and your job duties. Accurately describe your job duties, your supervisor responsibilities, if any, and the physical requirements of your job.

Don’t make yourself out to be superman. An inaccurate description of your past relevant work will be kryptonite to your Social Security Disability claim.