Transferability of Skills

To be found disabled for the purpose of qualifying for Social Security Disability benefits, a worker must have a medically determinable physical or mental impairment(s) of such severity that he or she is not only unable to do previous work but cannot, considering his or her age, education and work experience, engage in any other kind of substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy. Skills and their transferability relate to “work experience” in the definition of disability and to people’s abilities to do occupations different from those they did before becoming impaired. Claims which require consideration of an applicant’s ability to adjust to other work are addressed in the last step of the sequential evaluation process. Transferability means applying work skills which a person has demonstrated in past jobs to meet the requirements of jobs.