Affirmative Action

Social Security Can Do More To Improve Blacks' Representation in Its Work Force Gao ID: HRD-87-2 January 2, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO discussed: (1) the effect of the affirmative action plan at Social Security Administration (SSA) headquarters on the representation of blacks in some job series; (2) how SSA developed and implemented affirmative action plans; and (3) whether SSA planning and reporting complied with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requirements.

GAO found that: (1) although the overall ratio of blacks employed at SSA headquarters increased from 1982 to 1985, black men were generally underrepresented in the organizational components and job series reviewed; (2) SSA did not fully comply with affirmative action requirements in compiling and analyzing race and sex profile data for each stage of the selection process to fill vacant positions; (3) SSA did not fully implement an agency-wide affirmative-action plan because lower-level plans did not address the same mainstream job series; (4) SSA has not issued a report on its planned study to identify artificial barriers to the advancement of underrepresented groups in the work force; and (5) components' annual accomplishment reports did not include information on minority skills development activities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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