SSA Benefit Estimate Statements

Congress passed legislation in 1990 requiring the Social Security Administration (SSA) to begin providing the public with annual statements about its social security earnings records and estimates of the amount of benefits persons may receive. Starting in fiscal year 2000, SSA must mail personal earnings and benefit estimate statements to nearly every U.S. worker aged 25 and older--an estimated 123 million people. SSA projects that printing, mailing, and personnel costs associated with this effort will total nearly $77 million in fiscal year 2000 alone. Although SSA believes that it is prepared for the increased workload arising from this initiative, it has not assessed the added work likely to stem from questions about and corrections to the statements. SSA lacks reliable data on either the number of people who call or visit SSA with questions about their statements or the number of earnings corrections resulting from statement mailings. SSA could better manage the potential workload if it began to collect more complete and accurate data now on the effects of mailing the mandated statements.

GAO noted that: (1) SSA officials believe they will be able to handle the increasing work expected to result from the PEBES initiative; however, they lack enough information upon which to base this conclusion; (2) even though SSA has made two test mailings to estimate the effects of sending mandated statements and has more than 2 years' experience in mailing the PEBES, the agency has not collected reliable data on either the number of people who call or visit SSA with PEBES questions or the number of earnings corrections resulting from the PEBES mailings; (3) SSA could better manage the potential workload resulting from the PEBES initiative if it began now to collect more complete and accurate data on the effects of mailing the mandated statements; (4) with these data, the agency could monitor the volume of work, assess the adequacy of its implementation plans, and have an early warning of problems so that it could adjust its plans before service to the public would be impeded; (5) for example, if SSA would find that it needs additional staff to answer telephone calls, it may need lead time to install more telephones and train additional staff; (6) without adequate advance warning to complete these activities, callers may have to endure longer waiting times; and (7) moreover, better data on the reasons people call and the problems they are having with their PEBES would provide SSA with valuable information to help improve the statement.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: