Field offices, which served 43 million individuals in 2019,[3] were reopened on April 7, 2022 after being closed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[6] In fiscal year (FY) 2022, the agency expects to pay out $1.2 trillion in Social Security benefits to 66 million individuals.

[1] In addition, SSA expects to pay $61 billion in SSI benefits to 7.5 million low-income individuals in FY 2022.

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.

[8] In 1946, the SSB was renamed the Social Security Administration under President Harry S. Truman's Reorganization Plan.

In 1972, Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) were introduced into SSA programs to deal with the effects of inflation on fixed incomes.

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.

[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.

Interstate 70, which runs for thousands of miles from Utah to Maryland, terminates in a park and ride lot that adjoins the SSA campus.

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.

[25] Benefits Authorizers process complicated changes of entitlements to existing beneficiaries, including life events, overpayments, underpayments, and so forth.

[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] 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.

[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.

[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.

OHO runs offices for the approximately 1,200 Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who develop, evaluate, and adjudicate appellate claims and provide substantive hearings for claimants to obtain testimony and expert evidence prior to issuing a hearing decision with findings of fact and law regarding each claim.

OHO publishes a procedural manual called the Hearings, Appeals, and Litigation Law Manual (HALLEX) which "defines procedures for carrying out policy and provides guidance for processing and adjudicating claims" for OHO, the Appeals Council (AC), the Division of Civil Actions (DCA) levels.

SSA also administers the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which is needs-based, for the aged, blind, or disabled.

These programs received federal funding, but varied in terms of eligibility requirements and benefit payments.

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.

[46] U.S. citizens and nationals who reside in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are not eligible for SSI.

[50] 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.

[51] SSA operates its own administrative adjudication system, which has original jurisdiction when claims are denied in part or in full.

SSA decisions are issued by Administrative Law Judges and Senior Attorney Adjudicators (supported by about 6,000 staff employees) at locations throughout the United States of the U.S. Office of Hearing Operations, formerly Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR), who hear and decide challenges to SSA decisions.

The agency also adjudicates a limited number of Medicare claim issues, which is a residual legacy from when SSA was part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.