very pleased the court john sled for appellant and c dissociate the relocation agency denied miss any assistance when she was compelled by federal law to leave her ancestral lands on the basis of her not making one hundred and twenty three dollars of income needed to total the one thousand three hundred dollars in income that the agency has for a long period of time treated as showing head of household status because it self sufficiency that decision hinges that is relevant under the regulations it found that she was not credible and her sister were not credible on the amount of income despite finding them to be credible witnesses on every other matter they testified to the hearing officer identified no record evidence let alone substantial evidence let alone a cogent basis for that finding the agency also arbitrarily abandoned a decades old interpretation of its eligibility regulation as allowing income amounts to be proven solely through testimony this court should therefore reverse it should remain and but it should remain with instructions to award benefits because the record has been fully developed with agency cross examination five memo is that correct yes the crystal memo right and the disk the district court seem to discount the view that this was somehow a unilateral determination of oral testimony and as a foundation in saying well this really focused on older individuals in a traditional lifestyle is th the crystal memo i think set up three categories really of people and different methods of proof that were suggested on the regulation for each for those people who had documentation of one thousand three hundred dollars in income whether that was from general assistance which is thousand three hundred dollars comes from or whether it's because of wage stubs things like that they're in right that's enough for individuals who are under the age of eighteen so there's a presumption of dependence on parents or other custody ins they have to have documentation to back up their testimony but the in between group the agency the crystal memo which they followed religiously for thirty years and it's followed in cases by the district court that are cited to you in the u s brief the agency counsel's memo that for that middle group you have to consider the facts regarding the lifestyle in the hope the partition lands a very undeveloped extremely remote area that simply does not generate regular jobs and people who get pay stubs when you're doing a subsistence farming livestock you're you're weaving you're selling arts and crafts you're doing odd jobs there's just not documentation be expected the crystal memo leaves open the possibility that something might indicate the need for more documentation and the agency can  ask for it but that is not what the judge did here the judge here just said you've got to have documentation for the amount of income in one thousand and seventy nine period full stop i want to go back and clarify st that that regulation that in interpretive statement by counsel has been treated as if it were a regulation if you look at the agency's initial denial letter to miss which is your three hundred and seventy four dollars it says to be a head of household you have to meet one of the following criteria married a parent or quote self supporting parents earning one thousand three hundred dollars per year or more the agency cannot tell an applicant that this is the rule and then come along after the fact and say nope that isn't the rule you have to follow the regulate busy story text specifically and testify that you are self supporting and that's what the united states is arguing  when an administrative law judge makes a credibility finding and this is shown by numerous cases in the social security context immigration context under the a p a they've got to explain what they're doing that's a fundamental principle of the a like new math you've got to show your work right the matter what the answer is you've got to show your work and the testimony here was that miss by missiles you know sister that they babysat that and see the baby sat for sister it was paid sixty dollars a week for the last three months that their family was resident on h b o and then continued that income after they moved off h b o because her sister was a teacher far away that in going out they were found completely credible including the fact that the babysitting was done they were found credible in testimony of that and see who was paid this is findings of fact one into it e r twenty to twenty one the sole testimony that was found not credible was the actual amount of payment are three adverse credibility find it pays to look at the exact language of what he are twenty one and twenty four applicants testimony this is the st one regarding her earnings from babysitting in the fall of one thousand nine hundred and seventy nine is not credible period close quote st sister doris quote except for the amount of money applicant was paid for babysitting applicants sr is a credible witness and then rd quote recollections about payment made more than thirty three years ago are not credible and adverse credibility finding has to identify specific cogent reasons and it has to point to substantial evidence in the record and these findings fail they are naked declarations they are not explanations they point to nothing in the record they point to no internal inconsistency is in testimony no x turtling consistencies nothing found to be inherently improbable about paying someone sixty dollars a week to babysit your one year old child in the middle of nowhere there's nothing specific to the facts of this case in addition the hearing officer did not rely on any of the facts that agency counsel has pointed to at the district court of his briefing here those are post hoc they are mentioned the facts are mentioned but they are not linked by the hearing officer to his decision and finally the agency gives no explanation why if testimony regarding the amount of income is inherently incredible other testimony regarding events at the same relevant time period thirty years in the past areas a law that when an agency has an opportunity the st time to make a credibility finding and tie it to the record is required and does not do that when the record is fully developed and when applying the proper legal standard and discounting the invalid credibility  finding the agency ruling should be reversed the court has the power to do so and that it should do so when in those rare circumstances where there is nothing to be gained but delay and in this case forty years we hope is about as rare a circumstance as we can  administrative law to wait for a decision and we ask this court to reverse of the man for that reason thank home with her family had not at that point reached the level of being a self supporting head of her own household and i want to talk about the head of household finding st and then talk about why if this court or to disagree  reverse the just record why an ordinary man does what would be in order because there are outstanding issues and potentially other bars to her eligibility that would need to be reached below on the head of household question there's been a lot of talk about one thousand three hundred dollars in the one hundred and twenty three dollars which seems awfully close but that is not the threshold the regulations for head of household explained that in order to be a household a single person would have to quote actually maintain and support herself and what the cases show even the cases that the hearing officer cases that the plaintiff put into the record they show that what this means is what we ordinarily think it means it means that you are taking care of your own basic necessities clothing food transportation and the like and the rig's case that you are thirty is a good elucidation of this because there and in many of the other cases the hearing officer cases that have been provided the applicants testified that they pay for their own food they showed how they're able to get their own clothing not just the bigger earning money but that they actually use that money to meet their own needs and that is the threshold now the one thousand three hundred dollars figure has been used by the agency to be sure but it's been used as a minimum threshold that can be indicative of self support but not conclusive and what that means is that somebody could be making less than one thousand three hundred dollars but they are through subsistence living or otherwise they are still being able to make meet their own needs without relying on others for the majority of their self support i mean it can also mean that somebody might be making more than one thousand three hundred dollars but if it's shown that they are actually not supporting themselves  are living off site and phoenix and they're not actually being able to self support or they're not really using that money to do so and they're still relying on their parents so that one thousand three hundred dollars figure is not determinative it is a minimum threshold that the agency self supporting head of household and that's in the conclusion portion of the decision and he base that on two factors one is that she didn't show his his decision was that she didn't put incredible evidence of  thousand four hundred dollars figure and the nd reason he gives is that he looked at her general employment history at this time period and said well she didn't have any reported income for the fall she also didn't have any reported income for the next five years so i don't see why if an eligibility requirement needs to be met at a certain date so i'm clear to me why what you do after that should be imputed to your past well i think that you know this is a determination it's a factual finding that that hearing officer has to make on a case by case basis and the regulations they don't they don't say that you have to look to a certain window but i think the nature of the inquiry which is are you actually supporting yourself and providing for your own needs it has to mean something more than i got a check for one thousand three hundred dollars on the last day before i left right because at that point you're not showing that you've actually been buying your own food taking care of yourself so it's it is a you know that would have been able to show that she was actually using those earnings to support herself and so i think but that's all based kind of speculation that doesn't seem to be in the record if the fact that she didn't have social security earnings downstream doesn't say that she didn't meet it at the decision date and that's what i'm having trouble understanding the relevance of that testimony at all i think that  it's relevant because it i think it tends to show that if you've been making no income for those five years in that you also didn't report this income i think it's less likely that you were getting paid for this well i mean the people report and these circumstances are any basis to say people report this sixty dollars a week babysitting money and that just seems unreasonable to impose that kind of requirement given the circumstances well you know i think whether it's reasonable for her to take the risk of not reporting it to the i r s or social security administration is one question but the question here and i think she would have had to her sister would have had to actually given the amount of money that she claimed she was making in nineteen million seven hundred and ninety one thousand nine hundred and eighty but that's a different question people assume that kind of minor risk all the time but the question is whether or not it was unreasonable for the hearing officer to consider the lack of documentation as one of several factors but getting back to this question of the decision i think he made the decision that she was not self supporting head of household based on two things one is the credibility finding and the other is that you know there was nothing in the record showing that she had actually maintained herself as a district court found even putting aside the credibility finding i think you can with you can affirm the hearing officers decision on that basis alone so on what basis do we give deference to the finding of a lack of credibility on the sixty dollars on this record well i think there's not there's no basis for it they they laughed when they said that they wink at each other when they stand it some sort of indication that it was not worthy of trust on three reasons one is the age of which the events in which they were testifying about that it was thirty three years ago and this is a specific financial detail to be recalled that crispy crisply i think it's a not unreasonable to find  unreliable but even though the government in large part responsible for being thirty years later i don't think that the government well st of all if if the government were responsible which we don't think it was in this case that wouldn't make something you know that that's not credible wouldn't make it more credible but the other the other point is that her delay is not the government's she has not shown that it's the government's responsibility in this case and under the you know the the agency it reopened the application process in it discretion and it did so in the herbert case in response to the herbert case because a particular plaintiff who was potentially eligible hadn't been personally notified in this o c s case she was not potentially eligible under the regulations in nineteen  and seventy nine the head of household regulation actually required the person to have maintained their own house and in one thousand nine hundred and two that was revised again and it required a person to have been self supporting for the last  from nine hundred and seventy six and so there was no point in time unlike the herbert plaintiff where miss o c would have been required to be told by only here on the shore that she claims that she that she wasn't told and i want to know that there are number of things monday through friday five days a week four months in one thousand nine hundred and seventy nine in the entire year in one thousand nine hundred and eighty so according to her it was full time and that contradicts what she said in her application it is also significant that when in her appeal letter she mentioned all of the other types of job jobs that she might have had she even mentioned that she drove her grandfather places but she didn't mention that she watched a one year old for an entire year and got paid for it that seems to be you know an audition not to remember if you're going to remember all those other details so there is what's the standard here though where you know usually we're stuck to the reason given in the administrative context and here there is no reason given other than passage of time that none of these the facts you are laying out seem like they could be a reasonable basis that's not what the record that were were judging this on as so i think this court has to look at the record as a whole to determine whether it compels a contrary finding the hearing officer gave the three to the three reasons which was the age of the testimony the lack of documentation in her work history but the looking at her application that is in the record looking at her appeal letter that is in the record and those fact go to support his ultimate credibility determination and we would ask that if this court decides to remain ordinary man and is in order because there are a number of bars including whether she actually maintained herself thank  showed that in addition there was testimony not relied upon by the hearing examiner not test when i am sorry but material on the record and her notice of appeal which is the r three hundred and seventy two where she clarified that during that time period after she moved off she was having to work odd jobs for income and she was taking care of her grandparents so what the record shows throughout that whole period is that she was an adult she's her parents have moved away she has to work odd jobs specifically she's doing babysitting and she is in fact taking care of others as opposed to being taken care of so the social security rules pretty clear that if you follow the right rule and you put aside the erroneous credibility determination and the record that's in front of you is adequate that this court can and should order re manned with instructions to pay benefits and not give the agency a nd bite of that apple thank you i hope that answer i'm not sure but i just had a couple of very quick points st many of the arguments were not what the hearing examiner relied upon urged the court to look at the actual findings he relied upon soley the lack of documentation of income there's a lot of income that's exempt from social security reporting in addition to a lot that's not reported by people when it should be included nonprofit work and local government work which is the kind of work that's prevalent in undeveloped economically undeveloped areas  i think that's all i really need to point out thank you sir for the question no thank you thank our council for your argument you're obviously very well versed in this area and we appreciate this case just argued is submitted and we're joined for the