To design policies that ensure justice for all, we need tools for estimating not just a proposal’s price tag but its fairness. While several attempts at such equity analyses have focused on mandatory legislation, discretionary appropriations also play a key role in determining people’s access to benefits and services and the exercise of certain rights.

Part of a series of demonstration analyses that apply the Equity Scoring Initiative’s foundational thinking on how to structure equity assessment, this report examines funding for the Social Security Administration as an example of assessing equity in discretionary funding. We examine how appropriations decisions about levels and distribution of funding of field offices and other operational expenses ultimately affect applicants and beneficiaries of SSA’s programs and therefore have implications for fairness in economic security, health, and well-being.

Why This Matters

Lower SSA service levels have substantial impacts on disabled applicants and beneficiaries, including reduced employment, earnings, financial well-being, and health. Persistent underfunding or deep reductions in administrative funding, absent new efficiency gains or a reduction in new claims, can erode service and affect other beneficiaries, including retirees, spouses, children, and widows or those doing business with SSA.

By scoring funding bills, analysts can train the spotlight on these policy options and expand the types of debate and decisionmaking to support equity for underrepresented and underresourced groups. Without this information, the costs, and negative outcomes of underfunding programs for those who can least afford the burden—such as people with disabilities and veterans—remain hidden.

What We Found

When SSA’s budget does not keep pace with the volume of claims and other work, all beneficiaries are not affected equally. Instead, reductions in service fall disproportionately on people with disabilities, many of whom rely on SSA to provide disability insurance that employers and the private market often do not provide. These reductions in service that the government is required to provide include delays in processing disability claims, closure of field offices, and longer wait times on the phone and in person.

Lower service levels can reduce access to Social Security services and benefits for all, but they disproportionately affect people with disabilities and individuals who face additional barriers, including people with lower incomes, language barriers, and less education. Black and Native Americans are also disproportionately affected because they are more likely to have a disability, owing to long-standing disparities in the social determinants of health. These disproportionate effects create unfairness in access to benefits and outcomes. Changing how administrative resources are provided to SSA could help mitigate funding instability and unintended disparate effects.

The discretionary budget process is an opportunity to integrate equity assessment of agency programs and activities into the annual analysis and review process already conducted by agencies, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and congressional committees. While discussions of equity scoring of federal legislation have focused on mandatory bills, assessing how funding for discretionary administrative expenses limits or advances equity in outcomes is equally important; these are annual opportunities to uphold statutory and regulatory commitments to serve key populations.

How We Did It

We examine the Social Security Administrations’ stated goals using the Equity Scoring Initiative’s preliminary framework. Our analysis examines trends in SSA funding, benefit claims and approvals, and backlogs and wait times over the past 15 years. Then, using SSA as an example, we examine how appropriations decisions about levels and distribution of funding of field offices and other operational expenses ultimately affect applicants and beneficiaries of SSA’s programs and therefore have implications for fairness in economic security, health, and well-being.