Summary
This paper examines the Social Safety Administration’s (SSA) ongoing efforts to strengthen its relationship with tribal communities throughout the U.S. We performed a descriptive research of service supply to tribal communities utilizing data from a complete literature assessment, an evaluation of individual- and household-level information from the American Group Survey (ACS), SSA workplace location information, and semi-structured interviews with consultants, SSA and different federal authorities employees, state and native authorities employees, group advocates, and tribal group members.
The paper discovered that:
- SSA is doing quite a bit proper in its work with and on behalf of American Indian and Alaska Native individuals. The company is collaborating with tribal governments and different teams, consulting and listening to native and regional governments and tribal members, and using third-party case employees to supply providers.
- SSA’s reliance on on-line service supply could also be leaving out many candidates and beneficiaries, notably these dwelling in rural areas. Transferring promoting and repair supply to a web based mannequin—which was spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic—leaves out many individuals who wouldn’t have primary web entry, to not point out broadband entry. Driving to an SSA subject workplace takes about 16 minutes longer in Census tracts that embrace tribal areas than in these that don’t.
The coverage implications of the findings are:
- SSA or different organizations may contemplate a wide range of areas for future analysis, together with piloting demonstration tasks to check sure efforts; growing generalizable however adaptable service supply fashions; partaking stakeholders and group members with lived expertise; and bettering information and information programs regarding American Indian and Alaska Native individuals and communities.
