The bill primarily seeks to ensure stable and adequate funding for the Social Security Administration (SSA) by permanently appropriating funds for its administrative expenses. Beginning in fiscal year 2026, the SSA would receive an amount equal to 1.2 percent of total benefit payments, drawn from relevant trust funds and the general fund. Crucially, these administrative costs, along with program integrity activities, would be excluded from all Federal budget caps, including the President's budget, concurrent budget resolutions, and statutory pay-as-you-go rules, aiming to prevent funding shortfalls that impact operations.

A significant aspect of the bill is its effort to protect the SSA's independence and data integrity. It explicitly exempts the SSA, its personnel, systems, and programs from the jurisdiction of any "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)" and certain executive orders. Furthermore, it prohibits political appointees and special government employees from accessing beneficiary data systems, with exceptions for those directly responsible for improving benefit delivery. Violations of this data access prohibition would incur civil and criminal penalties, and the Inspector General would be required to investigate such breaches and report to Congress.

To ensure operational stability and service access, the bill mandates that the SSA maintain at least the same number of field and hearing offices that existed on January 1, 2025, and prohibits reducing service levels or closing offices, except for short-term emergencies. It also requires the SSA to maintain meaningful access to live telephone operator assistance and significantly improve call wait times. The bill prevents the SSA from reducing its employee count below 2024 levels and exempts it from any hiring freezes or reduction-in-force orders, allowing the Commissioner to hire new employees as needed to improve services.

The legislation reestablishes three key internal offices within the SSA: the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, the Office of Transformation, and the Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight. These offices would be headed by career appointees and are tasked with managing civil rights programs, overseeing strategic initiatives, and reviewing program quality and fraud prevention, respectively. Additionally, the bill appropriates $2 billion over ten years (FY2026-2035) for specific customer experience improvements, including increasing awareness of SSI eligibility, reducing disability claims backlogs, modernizing IT infrastructure, and expanding online services.

The bill also addresses the recovery of Social Security overpayments by codifying a new policy that limits the monthly decrease in benefits to the greater of 10 percent of the benefit or $10, unless fraud is involved or the beneficiary waives this limit. This policy applies retroactively to overpayment determinations made on or after March 25, 2024. Finally, the bill authorizes state grants to protection and advocacy systems and community-based organization grants to provide legal assistance and representation to individuals with disabilities applying for or appealing decisions related to SSI and SSDI benefits, with authorized appropriations of $25 million and $15 million annually, respectively, for several years.