Social Security Administration

The job of filing workers' applications for Social Security quickly became, in the government's words, "part of the biggest bookkeeping job in the world".

The Social Security Act created a Social Security Board (SSB),[9] to oversee the administration of the new program. It was created as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal with the signing of the Social Security Act of 1935 on August 14, 1935.[10] The Board consisted of three presidentially appointed executives, and started with no budget, no staff, and no furniture. It obtained a temporary budget from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration headed by Harry Hopkins.[9] The first counsel for the new agency was Thomas Elliott, one of Felix Frankfurter's "happy hot dogs".[11]

The first Social Security office opened in Austin, Texas, on October 14, 1936. [12] Social Security taxes were first collected in January 1937, along with the first one-time, lump-sum payments.[10] The first person to receive monthly retirement benefits was Ida May Fuller of Brattleboro, Vermont. Her first check, dated January 31, 1940, was in the amount of US$22.54.[13]

In 1939, the Social Security Board merged into a cabinet-level Federal Security Agency, which included the SSB, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and other agencies.[14] In January 1940, the first regular ongoing monthly benefits began.[10] In 1946, the SSB was renamed the Social Security Administration under President Harry S. Truman's Reorganization Plan.

In 1953, the Federal Security Agency was abolished and SSA was placed under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which became the Department of Health and Human Services in 1980. In 1994, Congress amended non-positive law 42 U.S.C. § 901 and returned SSA to the status of an independent agency in the executive branch of government. In 1972, Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) were introduced into SSA programs to deal with the effects of inflation on fixed incomes.[15]

One part of SSA headquarters in Woodlawn, Maryland

SSA was one of the first federal agencies to have its national headquarters outside of Washington, D.C., or its adjacent suburbs. It was located in Baltimore initially due to the need for a building that was capable of holding the unprecedented amount of paper records that would be needed. Nothing suitable was available in Washington in 1936, so the Social Security Board selected the Candler Building on Baltimore's harbor as a temporary location. Soon after locating there, construction began on a permanent building for SSA in Washington that would meet their requirements for record storage capacity. However, by the time the new building was completed, World War II had started, and the building was commandeered by the War Department. By the time the war ended, it was judged too disruptive to relocate the agency to Washington. The Agency remained in the Candler Building until 1960, when it relocated to its newly built headquarters in Woodlawn.[17]

The road on which the headquarters is located, built especially for SSA, is named Security Boulevard (Maryland Route 122) and has since become one of the major arteries connecting Baltimore with its western suburbs. Security Boulevard is also the name of SSA's exit from the nearby Baltimore Beltway (Interstate 695). A nearby shopping center has been named Security Square Mall, and Woodlawn is often referred to informally as "Security." Interstate 70, which runs for thousands of miles from Utah to Maryland, terminates in a park and ride lot that adjoins the SSA campus.

Due to space constraints and ongoing renovations, many headquarters employees work in leased space throughout the Woodlawn area. Other SSA components are located elsewhere. For example, the headquarters (also known as Central Office) of SSA's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review is located in Falls Church, Virginia.

SSA has a network of more than 1,200 community-based field offices. In fiscal year 2019, 43 million individuals visited these field offices to apply for benefits, get an original or replacement Social Security card, or receive other services.[18] Field offices reopened in April 2022, after being closed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

SSA provides a field office locator service, where members of the public can find office phone numbers and addresses.[19]

SSA also provides services through a national toll-free number (1-800-772-1213) and a website. Retirement and disability benefits can be applied for online.[20] For survivor benefits, however, members of the public must call or visit SSA in person to apply. In most states, individuals seeking a replacement Social Security card can apply for one online.[21]

Members of the public can also apply for Supplemental Security Income at SSA's field offices. Field office staff will also assist SSI applicants with an application for food assistance through the SNAP program.

The two buildings in the center, part of Lefrak City in Rego Park, Queens, housed the Northeastern Program Service Center until ...

... it was moved to the Joseph P. Addabbo Federal Building in Jamaica, Queens, in the late 1980s.

Much of the actual processing of initial benefits and subsequent adjustments to benefits is done in six large Program Service Centers located around the country.[22]

The two main positions in Program Service Centers have long been Claims Authorizers and Benefits Authorizers.[23][24] Claims Authorizers, now sometimes called claims specialists, establish initial benefits for program recipients.[25] Benefits Authorizers process complicated changes of entitlements to existing beneficiaries, including life events, overpayments, underpayments, and so forth.[25][24] The claims position is the higher-ranking of the two and initially required a college degree whereas the post-entitlement position did not.[24] For decades, post-entitlement actions have been processed through a system known as Manual Adjustment, Credit and Award Processes (MADCAP).[26]

The six service centers are:[22]

• Northeastern Program Service Center, Jamaica, Queens, New York (as of late 1980s; previously in Rego Park, Queens and College Point, Queens)[27]
• Mid-Atlantic Program Service Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Southeastern Program Service Center, Birmingham, Alabama
• Great Lakes Program Service Center, Chicago, Illinois
• Mid-America Program Service Center, Kansas City, Missouri
• Western Program Service Center, Richmond, California (as of mid 1970s; previously in San Francisco)[28]

They have been located in these six cities going back to at least the early 1950s.[29] The origins of the payment centers date back to 1942, when they were known as Area Offices.[30] The first one was established in Philadelphia, with ones in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Orleans, Louisiana, soon following.[23]

In addition, there are specialized processing centers for the Office of Earnings and International Operations and the Office of Disability Operations, both located in Baltimore.[22]

Form SSA-101 was the central form used in Program Services Centers for indicating initial entitlement to benefits.

Form SSA-2795 was the central form used in Program Services Centers for changing entitlements to benefits.

Before the mid-1970s, the Program Service Centers were called Payment Centers.[31] By the late 1960s, the Payment Centers had acquired a reputation as sources of poor bureaucratic performance that people did not want to work in, and a reorganization under a modules system was undertaken during the 1970s in an effort to improve matters.[23] Each module would be assigned a certain block of social security numbers and it would process all aspects of a claim, from initial entitlement through various changes, notifications to beneficiaries, and so forth.[24] Decades later, the modules system was still seen as one of the great improvements in SSA processing.[24]

The centers have each employed around two thousand people or more, giving them a major local economic impact, and even relocations within the same metropolitan area have created political conflict. When in the early 1970s, SSA and the General Services Administration said it intended to move payment center operations out of San Francisco and across the East Bay to Richmond, the move was opposed by San Francisco-representing Congressman Phillip Burton.[32] Burton's efforts were in vain, however, as construction in a redevelopment area in Richmond commenced and the move was made around 1975.[28]

Similarly, in the late 1970s, SSA, the General Services Administration, and the Carter administration devised a plan to move the program service center from its main location, in two leased buildings on Horace Harding Expressway in Lefrak City in Rego Park, to a new federal building planned for a revitalization zone in the center of the Jamaica area of Queens.[33][34] The move was championed by Congressman Joseph P. Addabbo, who represented Jamaica and whose district would gain the over 2,000 federal workers involved, but was opposed by Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal, whose district would lose them.[35] According to Rosenthal, the potential negative impact of the move affected the Elmhurst and Corona neighborhoods most strongly.[36] The move was also supported by Representative Geraldine Ferraro, another powerful Queens figure, who sat on the House Public Works Committee.[33] The dispute was aired in Congressional hearings and embroiled Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and developer Richard Lefrak, supporting and opposing the move respectively, as well.[37] In the event, the move went forward and the new, 11-story building in Jamaica – by then named the Joseph P. Addabbo Federal Building, as the congressman had died in the interim – opened in 1988.[38]

The Mid-Atlantic Program Services Center in Philadelphia

Initially, only 56 percent of the jobs in the United States were covered by Social Security. Today, the system is nearly universal, with 94 percent of individuals in paid employment in the United States working in covered employment.[39]

State and local government workers are not required to participate in the Social Security program if they participate in a public retirement system through their employers. However, state and local governments, through agreements known as Section 218 agreements,[40] may elect to participate in the program. Of the 23.2 million state and local workers in the United States, about 6.6 million are not covered by Social Security. Other workers not covered by Social Security include federal employees hired before 1984, railroad workers, some family employees, some students, and some members of the clergy.[41]

If a job is not covered by Social Security, workers and employers do not pay Social Security payroll taxes. Social Security retirement and disability benefits are not payable unless individuals have sufficient work in Social Security covered employment. Individuals who work part of their careers in covered employment and part of their careers in non-covered employment and who receive pensions from non-covered employment may have their Social Security benefits reduced through the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)[42] or the Government Pension Offset (GPO).[43]

Railroad workers were covered by the Railroad Retirement Board before Social Security was founded. Today, they still are, though a portion of each railroad pension is designated as "equivalent" to Social Security. Railroad workers also participate in Medicare. All state and local government employees hired since 1986, or whom are covered by Section 218 Agreements, participate in Medicare even if not covered for purposes of Social Security benefits.[44]

Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

An SSA field office in Ann Arbor, Michigan

SSA also administers the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which is needs-based, for the aged, blind, or disabled. Prior to the 1972 Amendments to the Social Security Act, low-income aged, blind, or disabled persons received benefits from state-run programs called Old-Age Assistance, Aid to the Blind, and Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled. These programs received federal funding, but varied in terms of eligibility requirements and benefit payments. The 1972 Amendments replaced these programs with the SSI program. SSA was assigned responsibility for the SSI program and began operations in 1974.[46] Federal benefit payments up to $794 for an SSI individual and $1,191 for an SSI couple are available from the program. SSI benefits are paid out of the general revenue of the United States of America. Some states supplement the federal amount.

Because SSI is needs-based, eligibility is restricted to persons with limited income and resources. In addition, eligibility is generally restricted to U.S. citizens, nationals, and some other groups (such as some refugees) who reside in one of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, or the Northern Mariana Islands.[47] U.S. citizens and nationals who reside in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are not eligible for SSI.[48] In 2019, 8 million individuals received SSI, including 1.1 million disabled children, 4.6 million disabled adults, and 2.3 million persons 65 or older.[49]

In some cases, individuals may be eligible for Social Security (RSDI) benefits and SSI benefits. For example, a disabled individual who worked in Social Security-covered employment and who has limited income and resources may receive a Social Security disability benefit (due to employment prior to disability) and a partial SSI benefit (due to limited income and resources). SSA refers to these beneficiaries as "concurrent" beneficiaries.

To ensure consistent and efficient treatment of Social Security beneficiaries across its vast bureaucracy, SSA has compiled a giant book known as the Program Operations Manual System (POMS) which governs practically all aspects of SSA's internal operations. POMS describes, in excruciating detail, a huge variety of situations regularly encountered by SSA personnel, and the exact policies and procedures that apply to each situation.[51]

Automation

IBM tabulating machines in use at SSA circa 1936

A few of the hundreds of keypunch operators SSA employed throughout the late 1930s and into the 1950s

While the establishment of Social Security predated the invention of the modern digital computer, punched card data processing was a mature technology, and the Social Security system made extensive use of automated unit record equipment from the program's inception. This allowed the Social Security Administration to achieve a high level of efficiency. SSA expenses have always been a small fraction of benefits paid. As a percentage of assets, the administration costs are 0.39%.[52]

Bloomberg reported that SSA made a $32.3 billion mistake when reporting 2009 U.S. wage statistics. The error when corrected, further reduces the average 2009 U.S. wage to $39,055.[53] In 2009 the average U.S. wage was reported as $39,269.[54]

Each year, just before Mother's Day, SSA releases a list of the names most commonly given to newborn babies in the United States in the previous year, based on applications for Social Security cards. The report includes the 1,000 most common names for both genders. The Popular Baby Names page on the SSA website provides the complete list and allows searches for past years and particular names.[55] For privacy reasons, SSA does not publish data for names with fewer than five occurrences in any given year.[56]

Another view of SSA headquarters in Maryland

• Social programs in the United States
• Public finance
• Social Security Death Index
• Social Security Disability Insurance
• Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2007 to 2013
• NOSSCR, National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives
• Richardson v. Perales
• Ticket to Work, SSA's Ticket to Work Program
• Title 20 of the Code of Federal Regulations
• Data.gov
• USAFacts
• SSA impersonation scam

All Social Security Offices in USA

• Social Security Disability Advocate's Handbook, by David Traver, James Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-58012-033-4
• Social Security Handbook, Germania Publishing, 2006.

The Mid-America Program Service Center is housed in the Richard Bolling Federal Building in Kansas City, Missouri.

• Official website
• Program Operations Manual System (POMS) – public online version of the procedure by which SSA employees process decisions about benefits
• Historical Background And Development Of Social Security by Social Security Administration
• Social Security Administration on USAspending.gov
• Social Security Administration in the Federal Register
• Works by Social Security Administration at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Social Security Administration at Internet Archive
• Papers of Charles I. Schottland, former Commissioner of Social Security, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Social Security Administration Office Locations
• SSA Pub. No 25-1556. Teleservice Representative Basic Training Curriculum Introduction Unit 1 Lessons 01-08 Student. pp. 7–15. Social Security Administration. April 2006.