Tom Krause, NOSSCR Lifetime Member

SSR 24-3p and Standing-and-Walking in Vocational Testimony

[This is the first of a 2-part series. Next month, we will look more closely at a flowchart for cross-examining the VE at hearing.]

A claimant’s RFC says, “light work.” The vocational expert identifies three jobs the Dictionary of Occupational Titles calls “light.” The ALJ accepts the testimony, finds no disability, and the case ends. That sequence has been a standard step-five script for over forty years. As of January 6, 2025, SSR 24-3p disrupts it. The ruling requires the VE to explain any difference between SSA’s definition of an exertional or skill level and the definition used by the data source she relied on, and it requires the adjudicator to develop the record when the VE does not. The biggest definitional difference, and one many attorneys have not been litigating, is the gap between SSA’s approximately six-hour standing-and-walking limit for light work and the open-ended treatment of standing and walking in both the DOT and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS’) Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS). This article walks through the gap, the cases that frame it, and what to do at the hearing and on appeal.

The three definitions of “light.”

SSA’s regulations define light work largely by lifting: no more than 20 pounds occasionally, no more than 10 pounds frequently. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1567(b). The regulation says nothing on its face about how long the worker must be on her feet. The standing-and-walking requirement comes from SSR 83-10, which provides that “the full range of light work requires standing or walking, off and on, for a total of approximately 6 hours of an 8-hour workday.” SSR 96-9p restates the figure when describing what it takes to expand the occupational base from sedentary to light. The six-hour limit is baked into a finding that a claimant can perform light work.

The DOT works differently. It rates exertion by force alone. A job qualifies as “Light Work” when it requires up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, lesser forces more often, or “when it requires walking or standing to a significant degree.” DOT app. C, § IV (4th ed. rev. 1991). The DOT places no cap on how long the worker must stand or walk; “constantly” (2/3 or more of the time) is fully consistent with a “light” rating. A DOT “light” job may, in other words, require standing or walking for the entire shift.

ORS, the BLS-produced survey that SSR 24-3p now authorizes as a vocational data source, defines “light” still differently. Under the ORS strength-level framework, a job is “light” on standing-and-walking grounds whenever “[w]hen the sedentary lifting or carrying requirements are met, and more than 1/3 of the workday is spent standing, light work is required.” ORS Strength Levels factsheet, Table 1, note 3 (available at https://www.bls.gov/ors/factsheet/pdf/strength.pdf). ORS imposes no upper limit. And by ORS’s own definition, “Standing estimates includes time spent standing, walking, and in low postures,” meaning crawling, crouching, kneeling, or stooping. 2024/2025 ORS News Release, Table 4 note available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ors.pdf; ORS Physical Demands Visual Overview at 2 (available at https://www.bls.gov/ors/factsheet/pdf/physical-demands-visual-overview.pdf). An ORS “light” classification can attach to a job that requires the worker to be on her feet or in a low posture for the entire workday, and to a job where the only basis for the classification is that the worker is on her feet for just over one-third of the day. Neither matches SSA’s six-hour limit.

Why the gap matters

The gap matters because vocational testimony at step five must rest on a hypothetical that captures the claimant’s actual limitations. Every circuit applies the rule. The Eighth Circuit demands a “high degree of accuracy” in an ALJ’s RFC assessment and questioning of vocational experts. Hogg v. Shalala, 45 F.3d 276, 278 (8th Cir. 1995). The ALJ must include in the hypothetical “all the claimant’s impairments supported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole,” Swope v. Barnhart, 436 F.3d 1023, 1025 (8th Cir. 2006), and testimony elicited from imprecise hypotheticals “cannot constitute substantial evidence.” Montgomery v. Shalala, 30 F.3d 98, 100 (8th Cir. 1994).

Other circuits are in accord. The Ninth Circuit recently held that a hypothetical that does not reflect all of the claimant’s limitations strips the testimony of “evidentiary value” and prevents it from “constitut[ing] substantial evidence.” Conway v. O’Malley, 96 F.4th 1275, 1278 (9th Cir. 2024) (quoting Leach v. Kijakazi, 70 F.4th 1251, 1255 (9th Cir. 2023)). See also Pearson v. Colvin, 810 F.3d 204 (4th Cir. 2015); Prochaska v. Barnhart, 454 F.3d 731 (7th Cir. 2006); Washington v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 906 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 2018). When an ALJ finds a claimant limited to “light work” and the VE then identifies DOT or ORS jobs without addressing whether those jobs respect SSA’s six-hour limit, the testimony does not, on its face, reflect the claimant’s actual capacity.

SSR 24-3p, in short

Effective January 6, 2025, SSR 24-3p requires the VE to acknowledge and explain any definitional differences between the data source she uses and SSA’s regulations. “[I]f the VS [DDS-level Vocational Specialist] or VE uses a data source that defines exertion, education, or skill levels differently than our regulations, we expect the VS or VE to explain the difference.” The expert “is expected to acknowledge the difference and explain whether or how they have accounted for the difference.” SSR 24-3p, 89 Fed. Reg. 97,158 (Dec. 6, 2024); accord HALLEX I-2-6-74(C)(3). When the VE does not, “the adjudicator will usually need to develop the record with sufficient evidence to make a supported finding at step four or step five.” Id.

That command exceeds SSR 00-4p. SSR 00-4p requires the ALJ to ask about, and resolve, “apparent conflicts” between VE testimony and the DOT. See SSR 00-4p; Jones v. Astrue, 619 F.3d 963, 977-78 (8th Cir. 2010); Massachi v. Astrue, 486 F.3d 1149, 1153 (9th Cir. 2007). SSR 24-3p layers on top: even where the VE’s testimony does not visibly conflict with anything, definitional differences must be affirmatively explained. The standing-and-walking gap between SSA’s light work and DOT/ORS light is precisely the kind of definitional difference the rule targets.

At the hearing: what to do

Cross-examination has three goals: pin down the data source the VE used, expose any unexplored definitional gap, and preserve the issue for appeal.

First, ask which sources the VE relied on. The DOT? ORS? OEWS? A combination? Personal experience? SSR 24-3p singles out ORS and OEWS by name as sources whose definitional structure differs from the DOT’s, so a VE who used either has triggered the explanation requirement.

Second, ask whether the VE understands that under SSA’s definition, light work requires no more than approximately six hours of standing and walking in an eight-hour day. SSR 83-10 is well-established, and Conway treats the agency’s well-established term-of-art definitions as presumptively known to experienced experts. Conway, 96 F.4th at 1278. Note also that the Prior Administrative Medical Findings (PAMF) from the State Agency Medical Consultant (in the “A” section of the exhibit file) limit the claimant to 6 hours (they almost always do, if there is a “severe” physical impairment). Then ask, for each job identified, whether the job as actually performed in the national economy requires standing or walking for more than six hours. If the VE says no, ask the basis. If the VE says yes, you have your conflict on the record.

Third, ask the VE to identify on the record the definitional difference between her source’s classification and SSA’s. SSR 24-3p requires her to do this. If she does not, the affirmative duty under SSR 24-3p shifts to the ALJ. Either way, you have built the record.

Fourth, if your claimant has any standing-and-walking limit short of six hours, ask the VE what happens to the job numbers if the claimant cannot stand or walk for more than four hours, three hours, or two hours. Get specific numbers if she will give them.

Sample question. “Are you aware that under SSR 83-10, the full range of light work requires standing or walking, off and on, for a total of approximately six hours of an eight-hour workday? Of the three jobs you identified, can you confirm that each, as performed in the national economy, requires no more than six hours of standing or walking? What is the basis for that testimony?”

On appeal: the argument

The argument writes itself once the record reflects the gap. It runs in three steps. First, SSA defines light work as requiring approximately 6 hours of standing and walking. Second, the DOT and ORS do not cap standing or walking for jobs they call light, so an unexplained classification cannot tell you whether the identified job respects the ALJ’s RFC. Third, SSR 24-3p required the VE to explain the difference and required the ALJ to develop the record when the VE failed to do so. Where neither occurred, the substantial-evidence standard is not satisfied.

Anticipate two counterarguments. The Commissioner will often invoke the regulation’s statement that the exertional terms “have the same meaning as they have in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.” 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1567, 416.967. That response misses the point. The DOT’s definition contains no standing-and-walking durational limit, so importing it does not import the six-hour figure; the six hours comes from SSR 83-10, which is not part of the regulation. The “same meaning” clause aligns weight; it does not supply duration. ORS is not incorporated by the regulation at all. And the ambiguity is inconsistent with the “high degree of accuracy” expected. See Hogg, 45 F.3d at 279.

The Commissioner may also invoke the presumption that experienced experts know the agency’s terms of art definitions. See Conway, 96 F.4th at 1278 (quoting Terry v. Saul, 998 F.3d 1010, 1011 (9th Cir. 2021)). At most, that establishes the VE knows SSA’s definition; it does not establish that the jobs she identified satisfy it. The presumption is rebuttable, id. at 1279, and a known, unexplained conflict between the identified jobs’ demands and the claimant’s capacity rebuts it.

The other gaps

Standing and walking are the cleanest gaps, but they are not the only ones. As to sitting, SSA’s sedentary definition limits sitting to about six hours, but the DOT’s sedentary definition turns on sitting “most of the time,” with no cap. As to lifting, ORS classifies certain occupations as light, requiring occasional lifting of 21 to 25 pounds, one to five pounds above SSA’s 20-pound cap for light. See POMS HA 01260.074(C)(3). As to full-time work, SSA assumes an 8-hour day and 40-hour week, while OEWS counts workweeks as few as 35 hours as full-time, inflating the available job numbers. Each is a definitional difference that SSR 24-3p obliges the VE to address. Run through them at the hearing if your claimant’s RFC may be affected.

The bottom line

Light work is not necessarily light. It has not been since SSA first wrote its term-of-art definition into SSR 83-10, but for decades, VEs have classified jobs under sources that define the term differently, and ALJs have rarely been pressed to explain the gap. SSR 24-3p has now put the burden squarely on the VE and, failing that, on the ALJ. The cross-examination is straightforward; the legal argument follows from the regulations and the well-established standards every circuit applies to vocational testimony. The gap has been there all along. The new ruling makes it litigation-ready.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOSSCR, its leadership, or staff.

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