In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 20-2598 

RANDALL RUENGER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

KILOLO KIJAKAZI, 

Acting Commissioner of Social Security,

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin. 

No. 19-CV-1160 — Nancy Joseph, Magistrate Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED NOVEMBER 16, 2021 — DECIDED JANUARY 14, 2022 

____________________ 

Before BRENNAN, SCUDDER, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit 

Judges. 

PER CURIAM. When a person applies for disability benefits, 

the Social Security Administration evaluates whether significant numbers of jobs exist in the national economy for someone with that person’s limitations. Administrative law judges

often rely on vocational experts to estimate these job numbers. 

But ALJs cannot afford complete discretion to vocational 
2 No. 20-2598 

experts. Instead, when a claimant challenges a vocational expert’s job-number estimate, the ALJ must inquire whether the 

methodology used by the expert is reliable. In this case, the 

vocational expert enlisted by the agency to estimate the number of jobs suitable for Randall Ruenger omitted crucial details about her methodology, such as the source of her job 

numbers and the reason she used the equal distribution 

method. But the ALJ nevertheless relied on the expert’s testimony. Because substantial evidence does not support the 

ALJ’s decision, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.

I 

Randall Ruenger applied for benefits in 2015, alleging that 

he had limited use of his left arm and mental impairments including anxiety and depression. He eventually received a 

hearing before an ALJ in 2018. Applying the five-step inquiry 

found in 20 C.F.R. § 416.920, the ALJ determined that Ruenger 

had not worked within the claim period (step one); that his 

mental and physical impairments were severe (step two) but 

did not presumptively establish a disability (step three); and 

that he had the capacity to perform light work with certain 

physical and social limitations (step four). At the fifth and final step of the inquiry, the ALJ determined—based on a vocational expert’s testimony—that Ruenger could still perform 

jobs that exist nationwide in significant numbers. Accordingly, the ALJ denied Ruenger’s application.

Some context about step five is necessary. At this step, the 

agency bears the burden of demonstrating that there are significant numbers of jobs in the national economy for someone 

with the claimant’s abilities and limitations. 

See 20 C.F.R. § 416.960(c)(2). Because estimating job numbers 
No. 20-2598 3

is no easy feat, ALJs commonly rely on the testimony of vocational experts—professionals with experience in job placement and knowledge of working conditions. See Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2019); 20 C.F.R. § 416.966(e). 

To provide tailored job-number estimates, vocational experts use various sources, and the expert here consulted three. 

The first is the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), a publication produced by the Department of Labor that lists job titles and their requirements. The DOT was last revised thirty 

years ago, leaving many of its job descriptions outdated. 

See Browning v. Colvin, 766 F.3d 702, 709 (7th Cir. 2014) (“No

doubt many of the jobs [in the DOT] have changed and some 

have disappeared.”). Since 2008, the Social Security Administration has been working on a project to replace the DOT 

with an updated publication—a development this court continues to invite. See Chavez v. Berryhill, 895 F.3d 962, 966 

(7th Cir. 2018). In any event, the DOT does not estimate how 

many positions exist in the national economy for each job title. 

Because of this, vocational experts commonly use another 

source produced by the Department of Labor that does provide job-number estimates: the Occupational Employment 

Survey. Unfortunately for vocational experts, this publication 

organizes its estimates not by DOT job titles but by another 

classification system, the “standard occupational classification” (SOC) system. SOC codes sort jobs into broad occupational categories, such as “mathematicians” (SOC 15-2021) or 

“electrical engineers” (SOC 17-2071), that each encompass 

multiple DOT job titles. See May 2020 National Occupational 

Employment and Wage Estimates, U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR

STATISTICS, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm (last 

visited January 6, 2022). This creates a matching problem: 
4 No. 20-2598 

vocational experts can identify the number of jobs in the 

larger SOC grouping but cannot identify how those jobs are 

distributed among individual DOT job titles within that 

grouping. See Chavez, 895 F.3d at 965–66. 

To bridge this gap, vocational experts sometimes turn to a 

third source, the Occupational Employment Quarterly, which estimates the number of jobs available in the national economy 

for each DOT job title. It does so by using the “equal distribution method,” a calculation that simply divides the number of 

jobs estimated for an SOC code by the number of DOT titles

contained within that SOC code. We have repeatedly questioned the accuracy of the equal distribution method, 

see, e.g., Alaura v. Colvin, 797 F.3d 503, 507–08 (7th Cir. 2015); 

Voigt v. Colvin, 781 F.3d 871, 879 (7th Cir. 2015); Browning, 766 

F.3d at 709, because it illogically assumes that each DOT job 

title within an SOC code exists in equal numbers in the national economy. See Chavez, 895 F.3d at 966. 

Here, the vocational expert testified that jobs in three categories existed in significant numbers for someone with 

Ruenger’s limitations: cafeteria attendant (106,000 jobs), office 

helper (214,000 jobs), and packager (316,000 jobs). She also 

provided three DOT job titles—“cafeteria attendant (hotel & 

restaurant),” “office helper (clerical),” and “packager operator, automatic (tobacco)”—as examples of particular occupations included within her estimates. When the ALJ asked her

to explain the methodology behind these estimates, she described a two-part process. First, she compiled job numbers 

from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Employment 

Survey. She testified that instead of using SOC codes, she 

looked through the industries listed in the Occupational Employment Survey and added up the estimates for “names of 
No. 20-2598 5

jobs” that were suitable for Ruenger. Second, she testified that 

she checked her job-number estimates against the Occupational Employment Quarterly, keeping her own estimates only 

when they came within 100 jobs of the estimate set forth in the 

Occupational Employment Quarterly’s comparable occupational 

grouping. 

The ALJ adopted the vocational expert’s testimony over 

Ruenger’s objection. The expert’s testimony was reliable, the 

ALJ determined, because she articulated a specific method 

that was based on her experience and consistent with the 

DOT.

Ruenger appealed to the district court, contending that the 

vocational expert’s estimates were unreliable. The district 

court upheld the Commissioner’s decision, concluding that 

the ALJ sufficiently established the reliability of the job numbers by confirming the expert’s qualifications, ensuring that 

her testimony was consistent with the DOT, and asking her 

about her methodology. The court also approved of the expert’s use of the equal distribution method because she used 

it merely to corroborate the estimates she compiled based on 

her knowledge and experience. Ruenger then sought our review, again challenging the reliability of the vocational expert’s job-number estimates.

II

On appeal, we ask whether substantial evidence supports 

the ALJ’s conclusion that there are significant numbers of jobs 

in the national economy for Ruenger to perform. 

See 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) (requiring Commissioner’s findings to 

be sustained if supported by substantial evidence). In the context of job-number estimates, substantial evidence requires
6 No. 20-2598 

the ALJ to ensure that the vocational expert’s estimate is the 

product of a reliable methodology. See Brace v. Saul, 970 F.3d 

818, 821–22 (7th Cir. 2020). A methodology is reliable when it 

is based on “well-accepted” sources and the vocational expert 

explains her methodology “cogently and thoroughly.” Biestek, 

139 S. Ct. at 1155. And when, as here, the claimant challenges 

the job-number estimate, the ALJ must compel the vocational 

expert to offer a “reasoned and principled explanation” of the 

methodology she used to produce the estimate. Chavez, 

895 F.3d at 970. The expert’s explanation must be sufficient to 

instill some confidence that the estimate was not “conjured 

out of whole cloth.” Donahue v. Barnhart, 279 F.3d 441, 446 

(7th Cir. 2002). 

Ruenger first argues that the way in which the vocational 

expert compiled her job numbers is unclear. We agree. Because the expert failed to set forth an understandable methodology, we cannot review her methodology, let alone confirm that it was reliable. The expert testified that she did not 

use SOC codes but instead added estimates for “names of 

jobs” within industries listed in the Occupational Employment Survey. Yet the Occupational Employment Survey furnishes job estimates only by SOC codes. Those codes are accompanied by job names (such as “marketing managers” or 

“computer programmers”), and the job-number estimates for 

each code can be adjusted for certain industries, but the job 

names do not exist independent of the codes. See May 2020 

National Industry-Specific Occupational Employment and Wage 

Estimates, U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, 

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrci.htm (last visited January 6, 2022). In other words, the vocational expert obscured

the origin of her job estimates and even denied the most likely 

source—SOC codes. Without this fundamental information, 
No. 20-2598 7

the vocational expert’s testimony could not have provided the 

ALJ with sufficient confidence that her methodology was reliable.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Biestek supports this conclusion. Biestek, 139 S. Ct. at 1157. There, the Court declined to 

impose a categorical rule making a vocational expert’s testimony unreliable whenever she refuses to provide data. But it 

also held that an expert’s testimony will not qualify as substantial evidence when she keeps data private without good 

reason and her testimony lacks other markers of reliability. Id. 

Here, the expert had no interest in confidentiality because her 

data came from the Occupational Employment Survey, a publicly available source. And the issue in this case is not that the 

expert failed to provide specific numbers, but that her testimony contained inconsistencies and lacked the clarity needed 

for the ALJ to have confidence in her estimates. Id. at 1155 (testimony meets the substantial evidence threshold when the vocational expert “cogently and thoroughly” describes a wellaccepted methodology).

Second, Ruenger argues that the vocational expert failed 

to justify her use of the equal distribution method. We again 

agree because her testimony lacked any indication why she 

trusted the method in this circumstance. True, as the district 

court found, she did not calculate her own estimates using the 

equal distribution method. Still, she relied on the method because she kept her own estimates only when they were consistent with the Occupational Employment Quarterly, a publication that uses the method to calculate its estimates. We have 

never enjoined the use of the equal distribution method, but 

we have required that a vocational expert justify her use of it. 

See Chavez, 895 F.3d at 969. Like the expert in Chavez, the 
8 No. 20-2598 

expert here failed to justify her choice by, for example, drawing on her past experiences with the method or knowledge of 

job markets. Id. And like the expert in Brace, the expert here 

“never claimed that [her] method for estimating job numbers 

is a well-accepted one, much less explained why that is so.” 

Brace, 970 F.3d at 822. Nor did she testify about why her estimates should come within 100 jobs of the estimates in the Occupational Employment Quarterly. After all, her estimates accounted for Ruenger’s limitations, many of which are not accounted for by the Occupational Employment Quarterly. 

Each of these concerns could have been avoided by further 

testimony from the expert, but the ALJ did not press her to 

elaborate upon her methodology. Although the ALJ asked her 

to describe her methodology, substantial evidence requires 

more. The ALJ must “hold the [vocational expert] to account 

for the reliability of [her] job-number estimates.” See Chavez, 

895 F.3d at 970. But even after cross-examination raised 

doubts about the expert’s methodology, the ALJ here did not 

ask the expert to clarify what she meant by “names of jobs,” 

whether such names are different from SOC codes, or the reason she used the equal distribution method. Thus, nothing in 

the administrative record allows us to conclude that the vocational expert’s estimates reasonably approximate the number 

of suitable jobs that exist for Ruenger.

We are mindful of the time constraints and heavy caseloads faced by ALJs. But when a claimant challenges a vocational expert’s job-number estimates, the ALJ has a duty to 

spend time inquiring into the expert’s methodology.

See Chavez, 895 F.3d at 970. This may require that ALJs ask 

more questions of vocational experts or slow down proceedings to give claimants a greater opportunity to pose their own 
No. 20-2598 9

questions. Otherwise, ALJs risk shifting the agency’s evidentiary burden to the claimant. Id. 

As we determined in Brace and Chavez, a new step-five 

hearing is needed to explore the evidentiary gap in this case. 

At the hearing, the vocational expert may be able to expand 

on her testimony or make some other showing that significant 

jobs exist for Ruenger. See Chavez, 895 F.3d at 970–71; Brace, 

970 F.3d at 823. Ruenger in turn will have the opportunity to 

challenge any such showing. 

We VACATE and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
10 No. 20-2598 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge, concurring. I write separately to 

underscore the significance of ALJs failing to ensure a sound 

record when eliciting assistance from vocational experts for 

job-number estimates at step five of the disability inquiry.

All three judges on this panel, assisted by very talented 

law clerks, read the transcript of the VE’s testimony multiple 

times. The parties’ counsel surely read it many more times 

still. And yet nobody can explain with coherence or confidence what the VE did to arrive at her job-numbers estimate. 

To my eye, the VE’s testimony seemed rushed and rote, as if 

she expected certain questions and gave hurried and mechanical answers, without taking care—even in response to repeated objection—to explain what she did to arrive at the jobnumbers estimate or why that method was reliable. We cannot make sense of the testimony—all of which came from a 

VE with substantial experience.

Some excerpts help illustrate the point. In response to 

questioning by Mr. Ruenger’s counsel as to the origin of her 

job-number estimates, the VE testified that she did not base 

her estimates on SOC codes. Instead, she said, “I do not use 

[SOC] code[s]. I use the names of jobs under the different—

they’re sorted sort of by industry .... I go to each industry and 

look at the thing that would refer to that kind of a job in that 

industry .... So the [SOC] code is meaningless.”

Soon after, and plainly confused, the ALJ intervened to ask 

the VE to explain her methodology clearly and succinctly. The 

VE responded with this:

So I would look it up in the Occupational Employment Quarterly, and then I would look up under 

all of the industries in the Department of Labor 
No. 20-2598 11 

wage and earning statistics things that refer to, 

say, packaging in that industry because I know 

those jobs in those industries from seeing them 

[in my professional experience] .... Then I add 

those numbers. Usually I have maybe nine 

amounts, like 1,200, 56,000 something, 20-some 

thousand something. I [add] those up, and if the 

total I get for those jobs that I know and have 

seen done is within 100 of the amount given by 

Occupational Employment Quarterly, then I use 

that as an example. If it isn’t close or it is hundreds of jobs apart, I throw it away, and I never 

use that.

No matter how many times we read this testimony, we 

cannot discern the VE’s methodology. To be sure, we recognize many of the VE’s references and much of the related administrative lingo. But recognizing dots does not tell us how, 

if at all, they connect. Faced with a transcript like this one, attempting to conduct judicial review is an exercise in futility. 

That is why we have concluded that substantial evidence did 

not support the ALJ’s denial of benefits for Randall Ruenger.

The concern underlying this evidentiary shortcoming extends beyond Mr. Ruenger’s case. The issue is more systemic. 

Since 2008, the Social Security Administration has been promising courts and claimants alike that a new, unified jobs system—designed to simplify the process of compiling job-number estimates—will soon be available. More than a decade 

later, the Administration has not completed its work. So today’s world is a distinct second best, with VEs made to crossreference data points from multiple nonconversant data sets 
12 No. 20-2598 

live on the witness stand at seemingly breakneck speed. There 

has to be a better way.

At the very least, the record would benefit from everyone 

slowing down when VEs take the stand. A disability determination may well mark the difference between income and no 

income for the claimant. With so much at stake in these proceedings, it is essential that a reviewing court be able to decipher the evidentiary record. Tapping the brake pedal may go 

a long way toward making everything more transparent.

We also have to imagine that there exist stopgap measures 

that can improve this process in the short term. At oral argument, we discussed with Mr. Ruenger’s counsel, who has substantial experience in these cases, the possibility of VEs preparing and providing brief written summaries of their methodologies to enter into the record. Maybe that would help 

things some.

In the end, though, it is not our place to prescribe a way 

forward. Perhaps the Commissioner will read this opinion as 

an invitation to bring long-awaited and much-needed improvement to this aspect of administrative disability determinations.