Social Security

Yearly Data for Asian & Pacific Islander Language Preferences among Initial Claims – Supplemental Security Income (Aged)

Background

The goal of the Social Security Administration (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. Generally, LEP individuals require more personalized service, such as interpreter services for face-to-face or telephone interviews and assistance in translating documents across program lines. In June 2004, SSA expanded the number of languages we collect in our workload system to 90. Our goal is to increase understanding of agency support and ease of Asian Americans & Pacific Islander community’s accessibility to transparency of data related to SSA.

Index:

• Agency Program Description
• Data Set Description
• Data Collection Description
• Technical Documentation - see Data Set Description
• Data Dictionary
• Bibliographic Citation– none at this time
• Change History– none at this time

Agency Program Description

SSA administers means-tested Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, nationwide federal assistance program that guarantees a minimum level of income. We pay SSI benefits to help aged (age 65 or older), blind, and disabled people, who have limited income, limited resources, and are U. S. citizen or national, or in one of certain categories of aliens. An initial claim is the initial request or application submitted by the public.

Dataset Description

This dataset provides annual volumes of SSI Aged initial claims at the national level from federal fiscal year 2010 and onwards for Asian & Pacific Islander language preferences.

Note: At the end of every fiscal year, we will add a new column to this report.

Data Collection Description

SSA collects language preference data when members of the public contact us to apply for Social Security 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.

Data Dictionary

Field A: Spoken Asian & Pacific Islander Language indicates communication by word of mouth by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Field B: Receipt Counts for Fiscal Year 2010, a federal fiscal year for the period of October 2009 through September 2010.

Field C: Receipt Counts for Fiscal Year 2011, a federal fiscal year for the period of October 2010 through September 2011.

Field D:Receipt Counts for Fiscal Year 2012, a federal fiscal year for the period of October 2011 through September 2012.

Field E:Receipt Counts for Fiscal Year 2013, a federal fiscal year for the period of October 2012 through September 2013.