Social Security To Start Collecting Race And Ethnicity Data

All federal agencies must file with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and publish a notice in the Federal Register when they establish a new system of records. Social Security put this notice in the Federal Register today:

Race/Ethnicity Collection System--0960-NEW. Currently, SSA has no reliable, statistically valid means of capturing race/ethnicity data in our core business process. While SSA collects some race/ethnicity data on Form SS-5 (OMB No. 0960-0066), the Application for Social Security Card, SSA does not receive the data through other means of enumerating individuals, such as the Enumeration at Birth and Enumeration at Entry processes. Moreover, SSA does not collect it during the disability application process. Adding race/ethnicity to SSA's benefits applications will give us data we can use to ensure the benefits decision process is being conducted in a fair manner.

This ICR [Information Comment Request?] is for the Race/Ethnicity questions. Note that OMB established the categories of racial/ethnic choices and the descriptions we use. We modified our proposed instructions and explanations to the public based on feedback we received during public focus groups (conducted under the aegis of OMB No. 0960-0765). The respondents are Title II and Title XVI claimants.

Type of Request: New information collection.
Number of Respondents: 7,870,538.
Frequency of Response: 1.
Average Burden Per Response: 3 minutes.
Estimated Annual Burden: 393,527.