title: Social Security Administration Vocabulary
description: >-
  Domain vocabulary for the Social Security Administration (SSA) — covering Social Security programs, benefit types, agency terminology, data APIs, and verification services.
created: '2026-05-02'
modified: '2026-05-02'
tags:
  - Federal Government
  - Social Security
  - Government Data

terms:
  - term: Social Security Administration (SSA)
    definition: >-
      A U.S. federal agency established in 1935 that administers Social Security — a program providing retirement, disability, and survivors benefits funded through payroll taxes. SSA also administers the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for low-income elderly and disabled individuals.
    tags:
      - Agency

  - term: OASDI
    definition: >-
      Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance — the formal name for the Social Security program. OASDI provides monthly benefits to: retired workers and their dependents (Old-Age), survivors of deceased workers (Survivors), and disabled workers and their dependents (Disability Insurance).
    tags:
      - Programs
      - Benefits

  - term: Social Security Number (SSN)
    definition: >-
      A nine-digit identification number issued by the SSA to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and eligible non-citizens for purposes of tracking Social Security benefits, tax reporting, and identity verification. SSNs are formatted as ###-##-####.
    tags:
      - Identity
      - Core Concepts

  - term: Field Office
    definition: >-
      A full-service Social Security Administration office open to the public five days a week. Field Offices provide in-person services including benefit applications, card replacement, and appeals. There are approximately 1,200 field offices across the United States.
    tags:
      - Offices
      - Location Data

  - term: Resident Station
    definition: >-
      A smaller SSA office that serves rural or underserved communities on a limited or rotating schedule. Resident Stations typically have fewer staff than Field Offices and may be open only certain days of the week.
    tags:
      - Offices
      - Location Data

  - term: Video Service Delivery (VSD)
    definition: >-
      An SSA service delivery model that uses video technology to connect claimants in remote areas with SSA representatives at distant offices. VSD sites may be co-located with other government facilities, libraries, or community centers.
    tags:
      - Service Delivery

  - term: eCBSV (Electronic Consent Based SSN Verification)
    definition: >-
      A fee-based SSA service that allows financial institutions to verify whether a submitted Social Security Number, name, and date of birth combination matches SSA records, with explicit consent from the individual. Used for fraud prevention and identity verification in financial services.
    tags:
      - Verification
      - Financial Services

  - term: CBSV (Consent Based SSN Verification)
    definition: >-
      The predecessor service to eCBSV — a manual or web-service-based SSN verification service for permissible purposes. CBSV has been largely superseded by eCBSV for programmatic verification.
    tags:
      - Verification
      - Legacy

  - term: Beneficiary
    definition: >-
      An individual who receives Social Security benefits. Beneficiaries may be retired workers, disabled workers, spouses, children, or survivors. SSA publishes open data on beneficiary counts by state and program.
    tags:
      - Programs
      - Data

  - term: FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)
    definition: >-
      A U.S. law that provides public access to records of federal agencies including SSA. Citizens can submit FOIA requests to obtain government records not otherwise publicly available through SSA's eFOIA portal.
    tags:
      - Legal
      - Open Government

  - term: ArcGIS Feature Service
    definition: >-
      The Esri ArcGIS Online platform service type used by SSA to expose its field office and resident station location data as a geospatial REST API. Feature Services support SQL-style WHERE queries and return JSON or GeoJSON responses.
    tags:
      - Technology
      - API

  - term: Enterprise Data Inventory (EDI)
    definition: >-
      SSA's catalog of datasets — both public and restricted. The EDI API exposes metadata about all SSA datasets at /api/PDL/public (public datasets), /api/PDL/non-public, and /api/PDL/restricted public endpoints.
    tags:
      - Open Data
      - Catalog

  - term: Full Retirement Age (FRA)
    definition: >-
      The age at which a Social Security beneficiary is entitled to full retirement benefits without reduction. FRA ranges from 65 to 67 depending on birth year, as established by the Social Security Amendments of 1983.
    tags:
      - Programs
      - Benefits

  - term: Disability Determination Services (DDS)
    definition: >-
      State agencies that work with SSA to evaluate disability claims and determine whether claimants meet the medical criteria for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
    tags:
      - Programs
      - Administration

  - term: api.data.gov
    definition: >-
      A shared API management service run by GSA (General Services Administration) that many federal agencies use to provide access-controlled, rate-limited APIs. SSA participates in the api.data.gov catalog for some of its data APIs.
    tags:
      - Infrastructure
      - Government Technology