If you have a medical condition that affects your ability to work on a regular basis, but is not as severe as any impairment described in the Listing of Impairments, we'll assess your residual functional capacity (RFC). This means we will look at all the evidence we have and determine what you can still do, despite any limitations caused by your impairment and related symptoms, such as pain and fatigue.

When we assess your remaining ability to do basic work-related activities, we will look at how your medical condition has affected your ability to:

• Exert yourself physically for various work-related activities (such as sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling).
• Do manipulative and postural activities (such as reaching, handling large objects, using your fingers, feeling, stooping, balancing, climbing stairs or ladders, kneeling, crouching, and crawling).
• Tolerate certain environmental conditions (such as temperature extremes, wetness, humidity, noise, hazardous working conditions like moving machinery or heights, dust, fumes, odors, gases, poor ventilation, and vibrations).
• See, hear, and speak.
• Maintain concentration and attention at work.
• Understand, remember, and carry out instructions.
• Respond appropriately to supervisors, co-workers, and usual work situations.
• Cope with changes in the work setting.

We will look at the demands of your recent past work and compare them with our assessment of your remaining ability to do basic work activities. We'll only look at your past work that we consider relevant. Past relevant work typically includes:

• Work done in the 5 years before we decide your case.
• Work considered substantial gainful activity.
• Work you performed long enough to learn the required tasks.

If we decide the past work you did is relevant, we will compare your capacity for work with:

• How you performed the past relevant work.
• How that work is generally done in the national economy.

To make these comparisons, we'll need a complete description of past work.

After we make the comparison, we will decide your status as follows:

• If we find that you can still do your past work at the same level, we'll decide you do not have a disability.
• If we find that you can do your past work as it is generally done in the national economy, we'll decide you do not have a disability. (We use reliable sources of occupational information, such as government publications, to make this determination.)
• If we find that you are not physically and mentally able to do any of your past relevant work, either at the same level or as it is generally done in the national economy, we'll go to step 5, the final step of our disability process.

• We will not consider past work that started and stopped in fewer than 30 calendar days to be past relevant work.
• If you were self-employed or an independent contractor, the 30 calendar days requirement also applies. We will consider whether you were engaged in the same type of work for 30 calendar days, even if personal work assignments or contracts each lasted fewer than 30 calendar days.

We will need the titles of your jobs in the past 5 years. We'll also need a description of the work you did. There are jobs with the same name but very different duties. There are also jobs that have the same duties but have different names. That is why a job title is not enough to describe your work.

We will need information about the:

• Main responsibilities of your job(s).
• Main tasks you performed.
• Dates you worked (month, day, and year.)
• Number of hours a day you worked per week.
• Rate of pay you received.
• Tools, machinery, and equipment you used.
• Knowledge, skills, and abilities your work required.
• Extent of supervision you had.
• Amount of independent judgment you used.
• Objects you had to lift and carry and how much they weighed.
• How much you had to sit, stand, walk, climb, stoop, kneel, crouch, crawl, and balance.
• How you used your hands, arms, and legs.
• Speaking, hearing, and vision requirements of your job(s).
• Environmental conditions of your workplace(s).

We'll also need to know about any requirements of your past job(s) that caused you to change how you did your work or that you could not meet because of your medical condition. For example:

• Worked fewer hours.
• Had help from coworkers.
• Took sick days.
• Had to leave your workstation frequently.
• Had to rest during the workday more often than your normal breaks.

We'll want to know:

• When your medical condition began to affect your work.
• If you became unable to do your work because of your condition.
• When you stopped working (if not working).
• Why you stopped working.

It is your responsibility to provide us with the information we'll need to determine whether you have a disability. If you do not provide the information we need about your medical condition and your work history, we may have insufficient evidence to evaluate your claim and have to decide you do not have a disability.

We will decide you do not have a disability. In our process, we'll evaluate your ability to do the physical and mental activities you were required to do in your past work. We will not consider whether you could get a job doing this work.

For example, we will not consider whether:

• You would be hired.
• A job opening exists.
• You would be required to move.
• You want to do this work.
• You still have a certificate or license to do the past work.

If we decide you cannot do the work you did before, we will consider your remaining ability to do other work considering your age, education, and work experience. We will assess these factors with your capacity to work to determine if you can be expected to adjust to other work that exists in the national economy.

We’ll consider how many years of school you have completed. We will consider whether you have completed any type of special job training or trade or vocational school when we assess your ability to adjust to other work. However, absence of formal education does not necessarily mean you are uneducated or limited in your ability to adjust to work. We will consider strong evidence that your educational achievement is higher or lower than the last grade you completed.

We generally consider illiteracy and inability to communicate in English as educational factors that limit a person’s ability to adjust to other work.

We'll consider how many years of school you have completed. We will consider whether you have completed any type of special job training or trade or vocational school when we assess your ability to adjust to other work. However, absence of formal education does not necessarily mean you are uneducated or limited in your ability to adjust to work. We will consider strong evidence that your educational achievement is higher or lower than the last grade you completed.

We generally consider illiteracy and inability to communicate in English as educational factors that limit a person's ability to adjust to other work.

We'll consider your chronological age in combination with your residual functional capacity, education, and work experience. We will not consider your ability to adjust to other work based on your age alone. We will consider advancing age to be an increasingly limiting factor in your ability to make an adjustment to other work.

If you are a younger person (under age 50), we generally do not consider that your age will seriously affect your ability to adjust to other work. However, in some circumstances, we consider that persons aged 45 to 49 are more limited in their ability to adjust to other work than persons who have not attained age 45.

If you are closely approaching advanced age (age 50 to 54), we will consider that your age along with a severe impairment and limited work experience may seriously affect your ability to adjust to other work.

We will consider that advanced age (age 55 or older) significantly affects your ability to adjust to other work. We have special rules for persons in this category who are closely approaching retirement age (age 60 and above).

When we consider your ability to adjust to work you have not done before, we will consider your vocational factors of residual functional capacity, age, education, and past work experience.

For example, you may not be able to do the lifting required by your past work as an automobile mechanic. However, you may have the ability to adjust to other less strenuous work based on your residual functional capacity, age, education, and past work experience. We may find that you could use your skills to be a carburetor mechanic, which is a less strenuous occupation.

Have you recently and successfully completed education or training that allows you to enter into a specific skilled or semiskilled occupation that you are physically and mentally able to do? If you have, we will decide you do not have a disability. For example, if you recently completed a program certifying you to become a chef, and you are physically and mentally able to do that kind of work, we will decide you do not have a disability.

In our regulations, we have tables of rules that we use as guides to evaluate how your age, education, and work experience affect your remaining capacity for work.

For example, a person with the following vocational profile would be determined to have a disability, according to our tables of medical-vocational guidelines:

Capacity for work:

• Can lift no more than 20 pounds for up to one-third of an 8-hour workday.
• Can lift 10 pounds for two-thirds of an 8-hour workday.
• Can stand and/or walk for about 6 or more hours in an 8-hour workday.
• Has no other limitations.

Age: 57

Education: High school.

Work Experience: No skills that can be transferred to work this person is physically able to do.

However, if this person has skills that could be used for work within their capacity and that exists in significant numbers in the national economy, we would decide this person does not have a disability.