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Annual Data for Bilingual and Multilingual Employee Languages

Federal Data Catalog Identifier: US-GOV-SSA-3191

Social Security employees must have the resources to communicate with the American public, regardless of a person’s inability to communicate in English. To achieve our commitment to provide fair and equitable service, we hire and retain employees who are bilingual and multilingual. This practice enables us to provide interpreter and translator services to our customers with Limited English Proficiency (LEP).

Our Agencywide bilingual and multilingual employees represent the communities they serve. This ensures our customers receive equal access to our programs and products in the customers’ preferred language. Bilingual and multilingual employees are stationed across the nation, in both regional offices and headquarters.

We also maintain a Nationwide Translators Database consisting of certified bilingual and multilingual employees. These employees assist our customers to conduct business in languages other than English.

To learn more about our language services, visit the SSA Multilanguage Gateway where you can access our Language Access Plan and other publications.

Agency Program Description

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers retirement, disability, and survivor's benefits. We also enroll people in Medicare. To be eligible for these benefits, most American workers pay Social Security taxes on their earnings. Future benefits are based on the employee’s contributions. Social Security taxes fund the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trust Funds that are used to pay Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits. Social Security:

  • Administers the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a federal needs-based program financed through general revenue funds.
  • Has approximately 60,000 employees that deliver services through a nationwide network of about 1,230 offices.
  • Has a presence in several United States Embassies and Consulates around the world.

Dataset Description

This dataset displays the yearly national number of bilingual and multilingual employees and the languages in which they can provide service. We have more than 2,950 employees that provide interpreter and translation services in more than 47 languages.

Data Collection Description

Each spring we update the number of bilingual and multilingual employees and the languages in which they can provide service.

Notes

  • Single asterisk (*): Data collected in the spring of each year.

Data Dictionary

Language: The languages in which employees can provide service.

Fiscal Year (FY): A Federal Fiscal Year (FY) is the 12-month period that starts the Saturday after the last Friday of September and ends the last Friday of September. Most years our fiscal year workload reports contain 52 weeks since we include only full weeks, rather than cut off in the middle of a week. Every few years the reporting period is 53 weeks when we apply the end of week cutoff.

Data Asset Metadata

Data File

Updated:

Data time period:
Fiscal years 2024 and later

File format:
comma-separated values (CSV)

Download:
SSA-Annual-Multilingual-Employee-Languages.csv