Basic (09-15)

NL 10602.110 What Is the History of SSA Notice Standards?

In an effort to improve our notices, SSA set up rules for notices we send to the public. We have updated and revised these rules through the years.

In February 1985, we published the first edition of the Social Security Administration Notice Standards Handbook. The Handbook was a guide for employees who wrote, typed, reviewed, or programmed notices. We based the standards in the handbook on research about what makes a notice “readable.” The Handbook provided a set of rules or criteria that made our notices uniform in how they looked, and clear and understandable in how they read. 

In 1990, the notice standards took on a new importance when Congress passed a law requiring that notices be clear and simple. SSA reviewed the law and determined that we meet the requirements of the law if we use our established agency notice standards. 

On June 1, 1998, President William Clinton issued an executive memorandum to the heads of all U.S. government departments and agencies. A stated goal in the memorandum was “to make the Government more responsive, accessible, and understandable in its communications with the public.” The memorandum mandated that the federal government’s writing must be in “plain language.”

On April 14, 2008, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3548. This was a bill to enhance citizen access to Government information and services. It established “plain language” as the standard style for all Government documents issued to the public. The bill requires federal agencies to use “plain language” when writing documents viewed by the public. It also requires agencies to follow the guidance of the “Plain English Handbook” published by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the “Federal Plain Language Guidelines,” or their own “plain language” guidance as long as it is consistent with the “Federal Plain Language Guidelines.”

We updated and published the most current agency notice standards on August 12, 2009.  These standards contain information and guidelines for readability, grammar, style, organization, and appearance for both English and Spanish notices. You can find the current notice standards in POMS NL 00610.001 through NL 00610.110.

As we move into the future, we will continue to update and revise our agency notice standards in order to improve our notices and our service to the public.