26
Opinion of the Court
As we held in Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843 (1984), when a statute speaks clearly to the issue at hand we "must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress," but when the statute "is silent or ambiguous" we must defer to a reasonable construction by the agency charged with its implementation. The Third Circuit held that, by referring first to "previous work" and then to "any other kind of substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy," 42 U. S. C. § 423(d)(2)(A) (emphasis added), the statute unambiguously indicates that the former is a species of the latter. "When," it said, "a sentence sets out one or more specific items followed by 'any other' and a description, the specific items must fall within the description." 294 F. 3d, at 572. We disagree. For the reasons discussed below, the interpretation adopted by SSA is at least a reasonable construction of the text and must therefore be given effect.
The Third Circuit's reading disregards—indeed, is precisely contrary to—the grammatical "rule of the last antecedent," according to which a limiting clause or phrase (here, the relative clause "which exists in the national economy") should ordinarily be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately follows (here, "any other kind of substantial gainful work"). See 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 47.33, p. 369 (6th rev. ed. 2000) ("Referential and qualifying words and phrases, where no contrary intention appears, refer solely to the last antecedent"). While this rule is not an absolute and can assuredly be overcome by other indicia of meaning, we have said that construing a statute in accord with the rule is "quite sensible as a matter of grammar." Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, 508 U. S. 324, 330 (1993). In FTC v. Mandel Brothers, Inc., 359 U. S. 385 (1959), this Court employed the rule to interpret a statute strikingly similar in structure to
caused by "technological changes in the industry in which [the claimant] has worked." 20 CFR § 404.1502(b) (1961).
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