Public Use Files
National Beneficiary Service (NBS) Public Use Files
Disability Analysis File (DAF) Public Use File
Supported Employment Demonstration (SED) Public Use File
Contact Information
For additional information, e-mail ORDES.PUF@ssa.gov.
The National Beneficiary Survey (NBS) Public Use Files
For more general information about the National Beneficiary Survey (NBS), please continue to the NBS page.
To protect the anonymity of NBS respondents while providing accurate and detailed data, we present the NBS data in two formats: a Restricted Use File available only to users approved by SSA and for use on specific research projects, and a Public Use File released by SSA for the general public to use in various statistical analyses. These two files offer differing degrees of accessibility to confidential information. For both data files, we have removed any information that could directly or indirectly identify a respondent; this information includes respondents’ names, Social Security numbers, and addresses. Because of its more widespread availability, the Public Use File has undergone extensive masking and has fewer available variables than the Restricted Use File. Even with the variables masked, however, the NBS Public Use File offers a wide variety of pertinent variables and topics for the general public to use.
In order to minimize the likelihood of indirect identification of a sample member, we deleted variables that could identify residents of smaller geographic areas or sample members possessing rare attributes (outliers). We also simplified the file by dropping variables with little analytic value. These included survey administration variables, source variables that had corresponding imputed versions, imputation flags, source variables summarized in a constructed variable, and constructed variables that we had not utilized in the round’s analyses. We also dropped data elements with quality problems that would reduce their analytic value, as well as agency administrative data appended to the Restricted Access File. In their place, we masked select key administrative variables and added them to the file as new constructs.
Using the Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Security (ORDES) Disclosure Checklist for the Public Release of Data, we developed encryption/masking algorithms that would maximize the analytic value of the data while maintaining acceptable confidentiality for the program participants. The ORDES Disclosure Review Board has approved the Public Use Files for release.
The Public Use Files are only available for the Representative Beneficiary Samples for rounds 1 - 5. The Ticket Participant Samples are not available for public use. A relatively small proportion of our beneficiaries participated in the Ticket to Work program, and, as a result, the sampling rate for the Ticket Participant Samples was quite high. For this reason, our Disclosure Review Board believes releasing the participant sample would pose an unacceptable risk of disclosure for this portion of the NBS survey participants. The successful worker samples for the 2017 (R6) and 2019 (R7) NBS are part of the NBS 2017 and 2019 PUF files.
Please visit the links below for technical details on each round, the documentation, and the public use files.
Round 1 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 2 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 3 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 4 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 5 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 6 Documentation and Public Use Files
Round 7 Documentation and Public Use Files
Disability Analysis File (DAF) Public Use File
The Disability Analysis File (DAF) is an analytical file consisting of agency administrative data in an easy-to-use format. We create a new version of the file and documentation each year. The file contains historical, longitudinal, and one-time data on all beneficiaries with disabilities who participated in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs at any time between 1996 and the year of the file. Each DAF is an updated version of all prior DAF files, so users should use the most recent file available.
The DAF PUF contains a random 10 percent sample of beneficiaries included in the full DAF. The 10 percent file is large enough to avoid disclosure risk and small enough to keep the file size manageable. The PUF contains a more limited set of variables than the full DAF, and we masked some variables in a variety of ways to avoid disclosure. Please consult the DAF-PUF21 Overview and Documentation for additional details on the DAF variables.
Note: The current version of the DAF PUF is the DAF21 PUF, with data through the end of 2021.
To access the DAF PUF documentation and data files, please visit the DAF PUF webpage.
Supported Employment Demonstration (SED) Public Use File
The SED Public Use File (PUF) is an analytical file consisting of data acquired from 2944 enrollees who provided survey responses at baseline and on a quarterly basis throughout their 3-year enrollment in the SED. In addition, SSA administrative data on claiming behaviors (e.g., appeals) and outcomes (e.g., allowances and denials, payments) for participants during the study period are also included in the analytic file. The files available in the PUF provide deidentified data for study participants and present final outcomes from the study.
All enrollees, regardless of study arm participated in quarterly follow-up interviews, in which they provided updates on their employment and use of services during the previous three months. The annual survey (e.g., quarters 4, 8 and 12) included additional items related to health status and functioning.
To access the SED documentation and data files, please visit the SED PUF webpage.