Tampa Social Security Attorney Garry Miracle Explains How an Administrative Law Judge Will Determine Disability
The hearing for Social Security disability benefits is a somewhat complex and technical process, so your chances of succeeding will improve if you’re represented by an experienced Florida disability attorney. In fact, sometimes the requirements of what you must prove may run counter to common sense. Simply showing that you can’t get a job because of your medical problems, for example, is not enough to prove to the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) that you’re disabled.
Instead, the disability determination is a lot more “hypothetical” and thus doesn’t really have much to do with reality. The Social Security Administration’s criterion is whether you are capable of doing work, not whether you could be hired. You or your Florida disability attorney may even have to present evidence that you are unable to certain jobs that you would never even be hired for in a million years.
Sometimes, medical findings about your condition will be enough for the judge to determine that you are disabled. Most of the time, however, your Florida disability attorney will have two things to prove to the ALJ: (1) your medical impairments impede you from doing any job that you have done in the past fifteen years; and (2) factoring in your age, education, and work experience, there aren’t many other types of jobs that you are able to do.
In proving the first requirement, you have to pick out the easiest job that you’ve done in the past fifteen years. You must prove to the ALJ that you are not capable of doing even this easiest job. It doesn’t matter if you’d never be hired for this job again in reality, or if the company that you used to work for no longer exists; all that matters is your physical capability.
The second requirement, proving that you can’t do other work considering your age, education, and work experience, is more difficult to prove and runs even more contrary to common sense. You may have to prove that you’re not able to do certain jobs that you’d never be hired for.
The term “totally and permanently disabled” is used a lot in workers’ compensation cases, but keep in mind that this does not apply to Social Security disability or SSI disability cases. You don’t need to go so far as to prove that you’re “permanently” disabled; you only have to prove that you’ve been disabled for twelve months. Additionally, you don’t have to prove that you’re unable to do anything; you just need to prove that you’re unable to perform jobs that exist in significant numbers in the economy.
If you are thinking about applying for Social Security disability benefits, or if you already have and are awaiting a hearing, do not hesitate to contact experienced Florida disability attorney Garry Miracle. Just fill out the form on this page, and I will get back to you for a free initial consultation.
