Issue New Social Security Cards?

Martin Gerry, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Disability and Income Security Programs, testified yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issues and problems involved in improving Social Security card security. The fact that Gerry was testifying about an issue that is clearly not within his offical duties -- disability and SSI -- is an indication of the scope of Gerry's actual responsibilities at Social Security.

Many are calling for issuance of new Social Security cards to all Americans. Gerry detailed the considerable costs involved:

Last year, we estimated that a card with enhanced security features would cost approximately $25.00 per card, not including the start-up investments associated with the purchase of equipment needed to produce and issue this type of card. According to estimates made last year, reissuance of all new cards for the 240 million cardholders over age 14 would be approximately $9.5 billion. Since that estimate, we know that the cost of issuing SSN cards has increased by approximately $3.00 per card due to new requirements for additional verification of evidence, so we anticipate an increase in the total cost estimate when we update our figures to reflect current dollar costs.

Currently, staff of the agency devotes approximately 3,300 work years of effort to the SSN card issuance process. Last year’s estimate indicates that we would need an additional 67,000 work years to process 240 million new cards. This would require hiring approximately 34,000 new employees if we were required to complete the work within 2 years and 14,000 new employees to complete the work in 5 years. This estimate assumes replacing cards for 240 million individuals; if fewer were replaced, the cost would be lower. An approach that mandated new tamper resistant cards would be issued only during the normal course of initial issuance and reissuance would involve relatively modest additional costs. If a phased approach were mandated that limited new cards to only the approximately 30 million people who change jobs at least once during a year and the additional 5 million young people reaching age 14, the cost would be approximately $1.5 billion per year, using last years cost numbers.