The five-step test behind every disability decision

Every Social Security disability claim in America — SSDI or SSI, in Louisiana, Mississippi, or anywhere else — is decided by the same five questions, asked in the same order (20 C.F.R. § 404.1520). Understanding the sequence explains most denials, and it shows exactly what a winning file has to prove.

Step 1: Are you working at a “substantial” level?

If you are earning above the substantial gainful activity threshold — $1,690 per month in 2026 ($2,830 for blind claimants) — the claim stops here, no matter how serious the diagnosis. Part-time earnings under the line do not automatically sink a claim, but they invite scrutiny.

Step 2: Is there a severe, medically determinable impairment?

You need a condition established by objective medical evidence — not symptoms alone — that significantly limits basic work activities and has lasted, or is expected to last, at least twelve months (or end in death). The bar here is low; few claims die at step 2.

Step 3: Does the condition meet a “listing”?

Social Security keeps a catalog of impairments — the Listings — with precise medical criteria for each body system. Meet or medically equal every element of a listing and you are disabled, full stop, no discussion of work. Listings arguments are technical and evidence-intensive, and the criteria change: the cardiovascular listings, for example, were just comprehensively rewritten effective October 30, 2026. Most claims do not meet a listing — and that is not fatal, because the analysis continues.

The bridge: your residual functional capacity

Between steps 3 and 4, the agency writes down the most it believes you can still do — sit, stand, lift, concentrate, persist, show up reliably. That paragraph, the RFC, decides most cases.

The RFC is built from the medical evidence, and one modern rule surprises people: for claims filed since March 2017, your treating doctor’s opinion gets no automatic deference. What the agency must weigh is how well each opinion is supported by that doctor’s own findings and how consistent it is with the rest of the record. A checkbox form with no explanation fails that test by design; a well-anchored opinion tied to exam findings and treatment notes is the most valuable piece of paper in the file.

Step 4: Can you do your past work?

If you can still perform work you did before — as you did it, or as it is generally done — the claim is denied. One recent change helps claimants: since June 2024, only work performed in the last five years counts (it used to be fifteen), and jobs you held for less than 30 days do not count at all. Fewer old jobs on the table means fewer ways to lose at step 4.

Step 5: Can you do any other work?

Here the burden shifts to the government to show there are other jobs, in significant numbers, that someone with your RFC, age, education, and experience can do. Two things dominate step 5:

• Age. The regulations get markedly more favorable at 50 and again at 55. Under the medical-vocational “grid” rules, the same limitations that lose at 49 can win at 50. Those birthdays are the biggest valuation events in a disability case — and claims close to a birthday can argue for the older category.
• The vocational expert. At hearing, a VE testifies about jobs a hypothetical person could do. Since a 2025 rule change, experts may rely on a range of occupational data sources — which makes cross-examination about where their job numbers actually come from more important than ever.

The practical takeaway

Denials are rarely about whether you are “sick enough” in the abstract — they happen at a specific step, for a specific reason: earnings over the line, a thin record at step 2, an RFC that understates your limits, an old job you can supposedly still do. A claim built backward from these five questions — with the medical opinions drafted to the standards the agency must apply — is a different animal from a stack of records and a hope. The firm’s disability practice builds files that way, for Louisiana and Mississippi claimants alike. If you have been denied, read what to do next, or contact the firm.