Lining Up Before Dawn In Las Vegas

This could be something the Ways and Means Committee will ask Commissioner Astrue about when he testifies. From the Las Vegas Sun:

The Las Vegas Valley’s Social Security Card Center, already among the nation’s busiest, will be even more of a headache for employees and customers if the federal government makes the agency enforce immigration laws, the head of the agency’s field worker union says.

Witold Skwierczynski says the Las Vegas office is a poster child for why the Homeland Security Department’s push to clamp down on undocumented workers by chasing down false Social Security numbers won’t work. ...

[I]f the new rules are adopted, Skwierczynski says, Social Security offices will be swamped, making it more difficult for other customers to get services. And Las Vegas, which until recently had customers waiting three hours in the lobby, will be among the hardest hit.

The problem is that the Social Security Administration’s database has serious problems. A 2006 inspector general’s report uncovered about 17.8 million discrepancies between names and numbers among 435 million records. More than 70 percent of those “no matches,” or nearly 13 million people, involved native-born U.S. citizens, including people who got married and changed their last names or whose two last names were switched by mistake.

So if the federal government suddenly required about 800,000 employers nationwide to check the Social Security Administration’s database, more of those cases would crop up. And the only place to fix those mistakes is at one of the agency’s offices — like the one at 1250 S. Buffalo Drive.

A long line forms outside the building most mornings about two hours before the doors open at 8:45.

The valley’s card office was second nationwide for visitors among all Social Security offices last month, with 12,931 customers, said Marjorie Johnson, district manager. The office has served more than 45,000 customers since January — with only 15 employees to help them.

First in line on a recent morning were a pair of friends who shivered in an uncharacteristic April chill. Marji Puype and Mike Chiou wanted to change the names on their cards — Puype because she is no longer married and Chiou because he recently became a citizen and, well, Mike is easier to pronounce than his real name.

The two showed up at 7 a.m. because they had been at the office a year ago for other business and saw four-hour waits during the afternoon.

Since then, Johnson said, another employee has been hired, with three more on the way. The office also became the first in the nation to use mandatory overtime for customer service. Since January, workers have stayed after the office closes at 4 p.m. to help customers still waiting in the lobby. So far, that has cost $14,367. But wait times are down to 30 minutes, Johnson said.

With hiring more, expanding the office and paying the overtime, things were looking up — after several years of seeing a lot of frustrated faces out in the lobby, she said.

But if the Homeland Security rule becomes reality, “we would have to come up with a new system,” Johnson said, adding: “I’m not sure how.”

At least one state already is dealing with the issue: Arizona, where a new state law requires employers to check workers’ records against the Social Security Administration’s database. Leslie Walker, spokeswoman for the agency, said there are no figures yet on how the law has affected caseloads at Phoenix’s two card offices. But she said field workers have noted that many who come in to clear up mistakes are recently naturalized citizens or have two surnames that have been switched. Both types of cases would be common in the Hispanic community here.