From a piece by Alicia Munnell, the director of the Boston College Center for Retirement Research for Market Watch:
The Social Security Administration faces an enormous challenge to maintain its services as retiring baby boomers increase the demand and budget constraints and retiring staff limit the agency’s capacity to deliver. ...
To investigate how individuals claimed or intend to claim their retirement benefits, my colleague JP Aubry surveyed 2,600 people ages 57-70. The responses showed that, while 60% of respondents applied or intend to apply online (a somewhat higher share than the SSA data show), only 43% of respondents claim completely online — that is, without contacting SSA in-person or by phone. Scaling the survey results to the SSA data for online applications suggests that 37% of retirees claim completely online ...
To better understand the factors associated with online claiming patterns, JP estimated a regression that relates respondents’ demographic characteristics to full online claiming (see Figure 3). Two of the characteristics most associated with claiming completely online are the use of online banking and Turbo Tax — both of which are proxies for a high level of comfort with online financial tools. Additionally, claiming completely online is associated with living in a metropolitan area, being college educated, and being married. On the other hand, the characteristics most associated with not claiming completely online are — essentially — being nonwhite. ...
In response to in-depth questioning, respondents identified four reasons for contacting an SSA representative: 1) complex issues that clearly require an SSA representative, such as discussing the specifics of spousal and survivor benefits; 2) general aversions to online services, like a concern about data privacy; 3) straightforward inquiries that could be addressed without contacting a representative, like checking the benefit amount and eligibility; and 4) obstacles to online claiming that could be remedied by SSA service improvements, such as fixing data errors. ...
Note that this piece concerns retirement claims, not the more complicated survivor claims, not to mention the vastly more complicated disability and SSI claims.
8 comments:
It tells me that we Boomers do not trust the internet when it comes to the really important issues. SSA's website is complex and cumbersome to use. Even signing up for Medicare was difficult, but fortunately, we had the help of a 3rd party.
If there is any issue at all--date of birth, citizenship, permanent residence, questionable month of entitlement choice, problem with address (have seen claims with no street), questions with direct deposit (incorrect/impossible RTN), etc, then SSA will contact the applicant by phone.
What I've heard from field office staff is that it's often faster to take a claim by phone (or in person, in non-covid times) than to look at what a claimant has written in an electronic claim and try to understand it and contact them to clean it up. A lot of people are bad with computers, have problems reading and writing, and really don't understand Social Security at all. Online claims work for very simple cases, more sophisticated/literate claimants, or establishing a protected filing date. But they are not going to eliminate the need for a lot of direct communication between SSA and claimants.
how many other agencies hold your hand in filing your claim or application? IRS for tax filing? DHS for immigration? DMV? Medicaid or food stamps? None, only SSA holds your hand and reads each question to you like you can't read yourself.
@5:05
Speaking as a millennial, I would note there is a weird (albeit small) cohort of boomers who are weirdly focused on doing everything online. Go with what works, not what is most technologically complicated.
8:15, folks who can read themselves are free to submit online claims. But I'm glad that SSA has other options too, because some people really can't read or understand the application. With food stamps, if something changes in your life or you realize you made a mistake on your application, benefits can be adjusted prospectively and often retrospectively. It's possible to file an amended tax return, and there can be retroactive Medicaid coverage. But with Social Security benefits, some things can't be undone (or can only be undone for a certain period of time) so ensuring that people are providing accurate information and making informed decisions seems wise. Why would anyone be against claimants getting the help they need?
@8:15
Yeah, it's almost like they are trained to treat people like they could be disabled. Weird.
We aren't "trained" to treat people as disabled. If we did that, we wouldn't expect them to read the mounds of paperwork we give them and expect them to know all the rules.
I've been screaming this for years as a CS! Half the people working for the agency have trouble with the rules of the programs. Yet we read an attestation script, hand people a pile of papers and briefly hit on some key points like make sure you report any changes in income or change of address or phone number etc.
Then, we hold these often poorly educated claimants accountable for understanding when and what to report without much leniency.
The government does not care about the public. the sooner people get this through their thick skulls the better. No one is looking out for them and we aren't trained to find things in their favor.
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