The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at Social Security. Here they are, with earlier numbers for comparison purposes.
- March 2012 65,257
- December 2011 65,911
- September 2011 67,136
- June 2011 67,773
- March 2011 68,700
- December 2010 70,270
- June 2010 69,600
- March 2010 66,863
- December 2009 67,486
- September 2009 67,632
- December 2008 63,733
- September 2008 63,990
- September 2007 62,407
- September 2006 63,647
- September 2005 66,147
- September 2004 65,258
- September 2003 64,903
- September 2002 64,648
- September 2001 65,377
- September 2000 64,521
10 comments:
More workloads and fewer employees makes me think this year would be a great time to finally retire.
The new slogan for SSA, "Doing More With Less". How long can it sustain?? Disability applications are reaching an all time high and we are down over 5,000 employees from 2010...
Wasn't the 2010 jump from 66863 to 70270 employees paid for with funds from the one billion in stimulus funding (which was supposed to be temporary)?
anon 7:08 pm--for the most part, yes, once again illustrating SSA's well-established history of lack of long-term planning, and the politicians' willingness to jump on every spending bandwagon until it runs out of gas.
Astrue suggested at a CLE in Atlanta a few years ago that he was told by multiple members of Congress that the ARA funds would, in future years, be combined with the regular appropriation level to form a new aggregate baseline for future appropriations. He stated that he argued with members of Congress that the ARA funds were great, but that they should be allocated to SSA under regular appropriations so as to form the baseline used in future CRs, but Congress wasn't as worried about it being ambiguous in the future. I suppose the 2010 midterms changed Congressional attitudes a bit, and whatever back channel talk about an aggregate baseline based on appropriations + ARA money was ditched.
I think Sen. Hatch criticized Astrue in a hearing once for unwisely using ARA money for adding staff instead of increasing efficiency through technology or something. But, being too lazy this evening to look it up, I doubt Hatch voted for the ARA, and his comments may have just been boilerplate criticism of any spending under the ARA. I have a hard time imagining any Republican saying in a hearing that ARA funds were wisely spent.
Anon at 9:15 -- are you suggesting Astrue is a politician jumping on a spending bandwagon until it runs out of gas? I don't think of Astrue as a politician, so I'm not sure I understand your statement about SSA's decision to hire being a politician's decision to ride a spending wave. I could be wrong -- maybe calling him a politician is a fair statement and he's the one you are referring to -- not picking an argument, just trying to clarify.
I wonder what the ratio of supervisors to employees are in SSA offices across this nation. We have one supervisor in our office that has four employees under him and it seems to be a waste of taxpayer money. Have supervisors call numbers and answer phones just like the claims representatives and hopefully that would reduce some stress on the claims representatives who are the work producers.
anon 9:15 here--no, I am not criticizing astrue, he has turned out to be much better than I originally judged. He had to take advantage of what he could get. I am criticizing ARA as another gimmick that the politicians used to try to make it look like they were doing something when it was a failure. Also, what fo's have one o/s for each four employees--haven't seen that ratio in years in my region. We have a dm and o/s and they both answer phones and do reception.
@1:27am - The unnecessary supervisors are in the PSCs that just hand out lists, jump down your throats to get on the #800 line, etc. I see a lot of managers from the field actually doing the faxing and uploading of documents into the electronic folders.
Anon at 9:41
Did anyone in Congress ever go on record with any promise to Astrue about the stimulus funds becoming part of SSA's permanent budget? Astrue made the same claim at a Senate subcommittee hearing in 3/2011. He made it sound like he negotiated some behind-closed-doors deal with "members of Congress" - as if they told him, "yes, we know the legislation stipulates that the stimulus money is just a one time allocation, but [wink wink] we promise you'll keep getting it every year." But when Senator Shelby asked Astrue "who told you that?" Astrue just said vaguely, "my understanding is it was members of Congress."
So you expected Astrue to hang specific Members out to dry in public? Not happening. If Shelby really wanted to know, he'd have to ask off the record in private. And he knows that, of course. Or he should.
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