Social Security Administration (SSA) Quarterly Data for
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Spoken Language Preferences
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Initial Claims

Background

The goal of the SSA is to improve core services provided to the public and provide alternative methods for conducting business with the agency. In support of this goal, SSA is committed to providing equal access to services for Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals. The above data sets provide quarterly volumes of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) initial claims at the national level for Asian American and Pacific Islander language preferences.

Data Set Index

Agency Program Description

SSA administers two different programs which pay disability benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance benefits (SSDI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The Disability Insurance program pays benefits to you and certain members of your family if you are "insured," meaning that you worked long enough and paid Social Security taxes. The disability standard for SSDI and SSI benefits are the same except for issues of blindness and for SSI Disabled Child benefits (SSI DC). Eligibility for disability benefits for both programs administered by SSA has two sets of eligibility criteria, namely disability and non-disability criteria. A favorable finding is required for both disability and non-disability criteria for benefits to be awarded.

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Data Collection Description

SSA collects language preference data when members of the public contact us to apply for Social Security and Medicare benefits and services. We use our electronic systems to capture this information. The Social Security Unified Measurement System (SUMS) provides work measurement data for all workloads processed throughout SSA. SUMS Counts Demographics Data (SCDD) is the data source for SSA's LEP reports. SCDD is populated by associating the agency's SUMS workload data with demographics data, which is housed in the SUMS client tables and is sourced by the Integrated Client Data Base. Demographics data includes spoken language, written language, age range, and gender.

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Notes

• A Federal Fiscal Year (FY) is the 12-month period from October 1^st through September 30^th. 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.

• Reporting quarters are administratively set reporting periods and do not necessarily correspond exactly to calendar months.

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