For several years, SSA conducted a direct match with States and D.C. to obtain wage
and UC data. Not all States participated in this match. Beginning in 1998, SSA started
a new matching operation for wage and UC information — a match with information collected
by OCSE.
OCSE collects wage and UC information from the States and D.C. and many Federal agencies
for “parent-locator” purposes. SSA matches the wage and UC information against the
SSR. This is a significant improvement over the old wage and UC matches because (a)
SSA receives information from all States and D.C. and many Federal agencies; (b) this requires just one computer matching
agreement for SSA, instead of a separate agreement with each State and D.C.; and (c)
SSA matches the SSR against the wage and UC data every quarter, rather than every
6 months. The OCSE match replaced the old wage and UC matches; once the OCSE match
went into place, the direct matching arrangements with the States and D.C. ended.