Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision A Strategic Assessment (2007) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Background and Current Context
1 Background and Current Context
Pages 14-31
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From page 14... ...
Development and Expansion of the Social Security Act In 1934, with the country traumatized by the Great Depression, President Roosevelt pressed forward to provide economic security for older Americans in the form of old-age benefits from an insurance system with near-universal coverage.2 The original Social Security Act was signed by 1 See Social Security Administration, "Information About the Social Security Administra tion," available at http://www.ssa.gov/aboutus/, accessed June 9, 2006. 2 See, for example, Richard E
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supported state welfare payments for the aged, and • Title II (Social Security) provided benefits to workers upon retirement at age 65.3 The Social Security Act of 1935 provided retirement benefits for workers at age 65.
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According to the SSA, 92 percent of persons aged 65 or over in 2004 -- some 40 million people -- were receiving OASI benefits as retirees, spouses, or other dependents; these benefits amounted to more than 50 percent of income for 65 percent of these beneficiaries.8 In that same year, more than 158 million individuals earned benefits by paying Social Security payroll taxes, and the SSA paid more than $490 billion to more than 48 million people.9 The DI program is administered by the SSA. The SSA funds state-run Disability Determination Services (DDS)
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DI benefits were paid to about 8 million beneficiaries.11 SSI is a needs-based program financed from general tax revenues, in contrast to the retirement and survivor's insurance benefits provided under the OASI program and the disability insurance benefits provided under the DI program. It is designed to provide benefits to aged adults and to blind or disabled adults and children with limited income and resources.
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TABLE 1.1 Social Security Administration Activities in Fiscal Year 2005 Across Three Programs: OASI, DI, and SSI Activity in Fiscal Year 2005 Scale Benefits paid Almost 53 million people per month Eligibility determinations made 8 million new claims Decisions made 1.6 million hearings and appeals Continuing disability benefits 1.5 million reviews reviewed New and replacement Social 17 million cards Security cards issued Worker's earnings records 257 million items processed Calls received at the SSA 800- 56 million calls number Social Security Statements 142 million statements issued NOTE: OASI, Old Age and Survivors Insurance; DI, Disability Insurance; SSI, Supplemental Security Income. SOURCE: Social Security Administration, Performance and Accountability Report, FY 00, January 2006, p.
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2005, according to the SSA, 78 percent of its operating expenses, some $7.4 billion, were used in support of the service goal.14 The SSA has defined five core business processes to facilitate the planning and managing of the delivery of services to beneficiaries: • Issuing SSNs (enumeration) , • Establishing and maintaining individual records of earnings, • Processing benefits claims, • Maintaining post-entitlement records of changes and reviews, and • Informing the public.15 These core business processes cross program and organizational lines within the agency.16 For example, processing benefits claims applies to all programs for which the SSA is responsible.
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. Over 60 percent of the SSA's employees deliver direct service to the public, mainly in field offices and teleservice centers; another 30 percent in the regional offices, processing centers, and headquarters, providing direct support to those front-line workers.18 However, the SSA is also seeking to use online information and online interactions with the public, both to obtain the efficiencies that technology can offer and to achieve the increases in service capacity that will be required in order to handle the growing baby boom-related workload.19 The SSA also looks to online interactions as a way to help in providing services to its wider user communities.
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contains the Office of Telecommunications and System Operations, which is responsible for the management, operation, and maintenance of the computer systems and networks on which both e-government and voice applications run. It also contains the Office of Systems Electronic Services, which directs the development of the software that supports electronic service-delivery initiatives; the Office of Disability Systems, which develops, implements, and maintains electronic systems to support disability programs (such as the "eDIB" initiative22)
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, the Office of the Associate Commissioner for Disability Programs is responsible for the development, coordination, and oversight of disability policies, procedures, and process requirements supporting the creation of a paperless disability claims process. These split responsibilities for electronic information and services and their implications are discussed further in Chapter 4.
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; internal agency users of electronic services (for example, field office workers) ; and external users of electronic services (for example, community service agencies and social science researchers)
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There are challenges of course. As an obvious condition of such interagency and intergovernmental data exchanges, the SSA will want to ensure that the organizations with which it intends to exchange data are willing to comply with the privacy and security requirements that surround data maintained by the SSA on behalf of workers, beneficiaries, and other users.
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that is intended to improve the quality of its interactions with state-run DDS agencies in what appears to be recognition of the importance of this community in the SSA's future e-government plans. Third Parties Third-party entities can be potential service-delivery partners, and there are likely opportunities for the SSA to seek initiatives that provide mutual benefits to both organizations and their shared user bases.
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THE SOCIAL SECuRITy ADMINISTRATION'S E-GOvERNMENT STRATEGy DOCuMENT As part of the study process, the Committee on the Social Security Administration's E-Government Strategy and Planning for the Future was asked to react to the SSA's "E-Government Strategy document."29 Early in the study process, briefings from the SSA and others and an examination of documents provided by the SSA led the committee to conclude that the SSA faces fundamental challenges that, unless properly addressed, would significantly hinder any strategy for implementing electronic services. In the committee's view, electronic services are best examined in the context of the SSA's overall service-delivery strategy.
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31 focus on "citizen-centered" use of information technologies to provide "high quality service, cost reduction, improved access to services and government accountability."32 The SSA also notes the profound effect that the forthcoming baby boom retirement wave will have on its workload, as well as changing public expectations and behaviors with respect to online information and services. The e-government vision as outlined in the strategy document is to provide easy-to-use, secure, and cost-effective e-government services to individuals, businesses, and other government agencies by 2009, so that these clients and other users can conduct most of their business with the SSA electronically.
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. 33 The strategy document describes the governance and organization of the SSA's e-government activities as spread across the E-Government Executive Council (to provide leadership at the Deputy Commissioner level)
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and the background and current context provided in this chapter, the rest of this report examines and assesses the SSA's medium- and long-term strategy for electronic services, including technological assumptions, operational capabilities, functional requirements, and future goals. Chapter 2 describes current electronic services offered by world-class financial institutions.
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and SSI programs, fill out an online disability application, and get an Adult Disability Starter Kit to help prepare for the disability interview. Medical providers can submit supporting information online through the SSA's Electronic Records Express Web site, or fax the records to the SSA or the state Disability Determi nation Services (DDS)
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• In the future, a Social Security claims representative (CR) in a local field office could use a suite of electronic services to develop the required electronic evidence to support disability or retirement benefits claims as well as continuation of disability benefits.
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