ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates computerisation in the US agency with responsibility for delivering social security benefits: the US Social Security Administration (SSA) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The Social Security Administration succeeded the Social Security Board in 1946. In 1953 it was transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, remaining within Health and Human Services when President Carter extracted the Department of Education. From the 1970s the SSA argued the case for its own independence, a case that was finally won under the Clinton administration in 1994.
