The United States Social Security Administration (SSA)(SSA Pub. No 25-1556 p. 7) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits. The Social Security Administration was established by the Social Security Act of 1935 and is codified in (). It was created in 1935 as the "Social Security Board", then assumed its present name in 1946. Its current leader is Commissioner Frank Bisignano.

SSA delivers its programs and services online, by phone, by video, and in person through a network of more than 1,500 offices nationwide, including over 1,200 field offices. The agency also provides service through its National 800 Number. Field offices, which historically serve tens of millions of visitors annually, were reopened on April 7, 2022, following pandemic-related closures.

SSA is headquartered in Woodlawn, Maryland, west of  Baltimore, at its Central Office campus. As of 2026, SSA employed approximately 50,000 Federal employees and funded about 13,700 State DDS employees. Headquarters non-supervisory employees of SSA are represented by American Federation of Government Employees Local 1923.

SSA administers the Nation’s largest Federal social insurance programs. In FY 2027, SSA will pay approximately $1.83 trillion in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Federal SSI payments are estimated at $69.7 billion.

To qualify for most of these benefits, most workers pay Social Security taxes on their earnings; the claimant's benefits are based on the wage earner's contributions. Otherwise benefits such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are given based on need. SSA also maintains more than 300 million active Social Security numbers, serving as the Nation’s primary personal identifier.

History

The Social Security Act created a Social Security Board (SSB), 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.(SSA Pub. No 25-1556 p. 15) 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. The first counsel for the new agency was Thomas Elliott, one of Felix Frankfurter's "happy hot dogs".; ;

The first Social Security office opened in Austin, Texas, on October 14, 1936. Social Security taxes were first collected in January 1937, along with the first one-time, lump-sum payments. 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.

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. In January 1940, the first regular ongoing monthly benefits began.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 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.

In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled in Flemming v. Nestor that the Social Security is not a system of 'accrued property rights' and that those who pay into the system have no contractual right to receive what they have paid into it.

In April 2025, the Social Security Administration, under the Trump administration, falsely listed over 6,000 living immigrants in their database of dead people, which was a change implemented by acting commissioner Leland Dudek and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, with the support of the Department of Government Efficiency, reported The Washington Post. The newspaper also reported that the Trump administration ejected Social Security Administration senior executive Greg Pearre from his office and put him on leave after he objected to the false listings as illegal and cruel. In August 2025, a whistleblower filed a complaint that DOGE uploaded a database of Americans' sensitive Social Security information to an unsecured server, compromising the data of millions of people. A few days later, the whistleblower, the agency's chief data officer, submitted a resignation that he described as "involuntary" after being subjected to an alleged hostile work environment.

Over the course of 2025, Social Security Administration staffing levels dropped by roughly 7500 workers, 13% of the total workforce. This constituted the largest one-year staffing drop in the agency's history.. The administration also made an effort to move more services online, announcing a goal of cutting field office visits in half (from 31 million to 15 million visits) in fiscal year 2026 Researchers found that these changes made the process of claiming SSI and SSDI benefits significantly more difficult.

Historical leadership

SSB chairs Source:

ImageNameStartEndNotesPresident(1933–1945)(1945–1953)

SSA commissioners Source:

ImageNameStartEndNotesPresident(1945–1953)(1953–1961)(1961–1963)(1963–1969)(1969–1974)(1974–1977)(1977–1981) (1981–1989)(1989–1993)(1993–2001) (2001–2009)Linda S. McMahon(2009–2017)(2017–2021)(2021–2025)(2025–present)IncumbentSocial Security Administration Press Release

Headquarters

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.

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.

Field offices 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

Program Service Centers

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.

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

The six service centers are:

Northeastern Program Service Center, Jamaica, Queens, New York (as of late 1980s; previously in Rego Park, Queens and College Point, Queens) 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)

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

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.

Before the mid-1970s, the Program Service Centers were called Payment Centers. 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. 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. Decades later, the modules system was still seen as one of the great improvements in SSA processing.

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. Burton's efforts were in vain, however, as construction in a redevelopment area in Richmond commenced and the move was made around 1975.