What the scan found
The axe-core rules that failed on the Social Security Administration homepage, most impactful first.
Images must have alternate text
image-alt · critical impact · 1 element
Elements must meet minimum color contrast ratio thresholds
color-contrast · serious impact · 4 elements
Heading levels should only increase by one
heading-order · moderate impact · 3 elements
All page content should be contained by landmarks
region · moderate impact · 2 elements
Landmarks should have a unique role or role/label/title (i.e. accessible name) combination
landmark-unique · moderate impact · 1 element
Page should contain a level-one heading
page-has-heading-one · moderate impact · 1 element
Scanned September 1, 2026 against https://www.ssa.gov. 3 checks needed manual review and are not counted in the score.
What this scan does not cover
Automated checks like this one catch roughly 30–40% of WCAG issues, and this scan covers the homepage only. Manual testing is still required for keyboard flows, screen reader output and content quality.
A clean automated score is a floor, not a pass. If you need the issues an automated homepage check misses, run a full scan on your own site and work through the findings.
Why Accessibility Matters for Social Security Administration
Social Security serves a disproportionately high number of users with disabilities. Inaccessible benefit applications, disability claim forms, and account management tools directly harm the most vulnerable populations.
What this means
Each failure above is a concrete barrier an automated tool could see without a human in the loop. This is not legal advice, but ADA complaints routinely cite exactly these WCAG 2.1 AA failures — contrast, labels, landmarks and keyboard access.
Business impact
Missed conversions from users who rely on assistive technology, plus higher support costs from inaccessible flows.
Compliance impact
ADA lawsuits often cite WCAG failures like contrast, labels, and keyboard access. Addressing the top issues closes the biggest gaps.
Related resources
Keep exploring accessibility benchmarks and WCAG success criteria.
Fix accessibility issues
Use these free tools and guides to fix the accessibility issues found above:
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