Social Security Problems Detailed

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, has posted a white paper that it has prepared for the Obama transition. It provides sobering details of Social Security's problems. Here are a few highlights:

• [I]n FY [Fiscal Year] 2007, 45% of the approximately 54 million callers who tried to reach a [Social Security] Field Office by telephone said that they had received a busy signal or a recording that all lines were busy. Because many of these callers may have called more than once and on multiple days, the actual busy rate is likely much higher than the 45% indicated by the study.
• Waiting times in Field Offices are increasing with many customers having to wait hours before they receive service.
• SSA [Social Security Administration] projects a backlog of workloads that occur after individuals become entitled to benefits (post-entitlement work) of 2,000 to 3,000 work years in FY 2009 if the agency receives the level of funding proposed by the President. Based on current budget projections, the agency also anticipates the work year backlog to increase by 2,000 to 3,000 work years in FY 2010.
• In the first nine weeks of FY 2009, the state DDSs [Disability Determination Services] have received over 5 percent more new disability claims and 13 percent more requests for reconsiderations than the same time last year.
• SSA also has a backlog of about 1.7 million unworked medical Continuing Disability Reviews and has drastically reduced the number of SSI Redeterminations conducted because of budget shortfalls. Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) save $11.70 in program costs for every $1 spent in administrative dollars. The unworked backlog is costing taxpayers over $10 billion dollars.
• SSI eligibility redeterminations save $10 for every $1 spent in administrative dollars above SSA’s base level. In FY 2008, 1.2 million SSI redeterminations were performed. This is 1 million fewer annual SSI redeterminations than earlier this decade. This is also a contributing factor in the increase of the SSI overpayment error rate from 6.4 percent to 9.1 percent from FY 2005 to FY 2007. The overpayment error rate is currently at its highest rate in over 30 years. There is a direct correlation between the increasing error rate and the decline in the number of SSI redeterminations completed. In FY 2007 the projected overpayments were $3.9 billion. Thus the unworked SSI redeterminations are also costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

• SSA currently manages over one petabyte of data (one million gigabytes).... The agency’s National Computer Center (NCC) is almost 30 years old and its design is no longer optimal to support the critical systems necessary to SSA’s mission. Its mechanical and electrical systems are nearing the end of their useful lives. Other components of the current NCC such as the cabling and fire suppression capabilities are disintegrating. A fire within the NCC would be devastating. Moreover, the NCC’s capacity to keep up with increasing volumes of work, new and expanded responsibilities, and new ways of doing business is severely limited. The storage capacity needs of the NCC will nearly quadruple by FY 2014. Much of this is due to the anticipated increase in the number of Internet transactions between the American public and SSA. Performing any type of maintenance or repairs on the current NCC is very difficult as SSA must keep its systems running 24/7. For the reasons stated above, it is imperative that work begin quickly, as the project will take several years to complete. If the NCC is not replaced, SSA’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the American public could be severely compromised, leading to catastrophic service disruptions. The total cost of replacing the NCC, which includes the facility and IT equipment costs, is approximately $750 million.

Have you ever seen the word "petabyte" before? This is the first time for me. That is an almost inconceivable amount of data.