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Online Social Security Statement In Limbo
coondoggie writes "While the debate over Social Security benefits is heating up in Congress, one of the most basic ways everyone interacts with the agency — the yearly Social Security Statement — is in limbo as the agency struggles to move it online. The Social Security Statement had been issued every year since 2000 to more than 150 million workers serving as the government's key way of communicating with workers about benefits, earnings records and how much retirement money they have. The statement is also a key tool for communicating with the public about the long-term financial challenges the Social Security system faces. However, whether you realize it or not, the SSA suspended mailings of the statement in March citing budgetary concerns."
My grandma calls websites "double-u double-u double-u's". There's no frigging way that she could handle something like this online.
I will gladly pay $1 in taxes each year to pay for them to print and mail a statement.
I've seen the accounting for such things in a number of corporations, and none of them could send out statements at a cost of under $1, so I doubt that the SSA can achieve such a cheap mailing, either.
There are a lot more costs than the paper and postage. This is the reason for the inexorable move to electronic statements. It's far cheaper to move a flock of electrons or photons than it is to move the equivalent pieces of paper. Electrons and photons are much better behaved than pieces of paper, so it can mostly be handled by the computers and comm gear, without human hands getting involved. You'd be surprised at how difficult it is to fully automate paper communications.
(Unless you've done it, of course, in which case you know most of the zillions of ways that pieces of paper -- and the moving parts that push them around -- can screw things up. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Maybe you should read one of those statements they mail, or just do some reading online. Social Security in its current state will never "collapse" because it is funded by taxes. It has taxes collected just for it, from every paycheck. As such, so long as there are people working in America, it has a revenue stream.
The problem is not a collapse, the problem is that they will not be able to pay out promised benefits. Currently the SSA takes in less money than they need to pay out for benefits. In the short term, that is ok, they have a large fund which is used to fund the difference. However the difference is quite large, and nothing is being done to fix the problem. That means at some point the fund will be depleted (when depends on a lot of factors, you can look up the various estimates). When that happens, they can't pay out the promised benefits, only a fraction of them, maybe 70% currently.
It is a big problem, particularly since many people depend on social security to not be homeless in old age. However it will not "collapse."
In terms of suspending mailings, well it probably saves more than you think. It isn't just postage, it is printing costs. No, it doesn't cost a lot to print a couple page flyer. Does cost a bit to print a hundred million of them though.
Given that they are spending out more than they take in, it makes sense to cut where it is feasible. This would be a potential area.
In a former job around 6-7 years ago, I worked for a major university that received a lot of state and federal grants, many of which were from the SSA and which included provisions about operating web sites on behalf of the SSA. These were not complex web sites, but they were totally clueless (as was everyone from the SSA that I ever dealt with, though in fairness we only dealt with two or three specific branches). We would get phone calls at 6AM demanding that we remove the SSA logo from a web site that we had done on their behalf, and then a phone call four hours later demanding that we put it back.
Even by government standards, these people had terrible attitudes. Every meeting with them began and ended with the SSA having the attitude that they were performing the most vital government service in existence, and therefore they knew everything about how it should be done -- not necessarily a bad position, but by definition not a terribly logical one if you are hiring outside groups to do certain jobs for you.
The paper statements they send out are a hoot, too. They have a little insert that says something to the effect of 'I've heard that Social Security will be insolvent by the year 20xx (usually around 2030). Will I stop receiving payments?'
'No! Social security will continue to operate as normal. If Congress does not authorize additional funding, you can expect to receive seventy cents on the dollar.'
Their definition of 'insolvent' must be 'nobody receives anything,' but I can lose 30% of what I'm 'owed' without government assistance.
One problem here that not many people know about is that the "trust fund" isn't an actual account with actual money in it.
It's basically just a stack of IOUs from the Treasury dept stating that they will pay that amount when the SSA requests it, but if future government revenues or budgets are not conducive to that money being available from Treasury, it could be hard for them to get it.
One problem here that not many people know about is that the "trust fund" isn't an actual account with actual money in it.
Sure it is. You might as well argue that your bank account has no money in it because they loaned it out, or that any retirement fund with stocks, bonds, or T-bills in it doesn't have any money in the account.
All accounts run like that. "Your" money isn't there. It's in some IOU form. Unless you have your retirement account stashed under the bed, you do exactly what you condemn.
Learn to love Alaska
The difference is that the social security trust fund *is* the federal government. The federal government lent all the money in the social security trust fund to itself, and then it spent the money. A bank would have lent the money to various third parties who would pay it back. The federal government has to pay the money back through tax revenue (or more borrowing). That's a pretty big difference. If a bank lent its deposits to its officers, and then the officers spent the money, all the bank's officers would be in jail right now. An IOU written to yourself is not an asset. The social security trust fund is insolvent. All the money being paid out has to come from taxes, borrowing, or printing money.
One problem here is that people posting things like the above don't know what an "actual account" is, since that's exactly what an actual account (e.g., at a bank) is.
You seem to have "account" confused with "safety deposit box".
This is all about politics and scaring older voters.
The SSA has been making a large push to direct deposit. I am sure this is saving them far more than the statements that they have been mailing every few years.
Sorry, but you are out of your mind if you think it costs $3 to $10 to produce and stuff and address that statement.
We do such mailings all the time for far, far less. And in THAT type of volume, with automation, the actual costs is well below $1.
Even our Xerox printer/copers at a measly 70ppm, ACTUAL COSTS, including the tabloid paper, would be about $0.03 per statement. Envelope and stuff for another $0.05. Address it for another $0.01 or so. I am guessing the actual costs of their statements, ready to mail, are in the $0.10 to $0.15 range.
There is NO WAY they are going to maintain a website design, and database, and hardware, and electricity, and ISP, AND SUPPORT THE MILLIONS OF LOGINS and HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CONFUSED elderly for less than their simple annual mailing. No way.
Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.
you want to see pitchforks and torches? wait till the boomers retire and are told there is no money (or not enough) in the kitty.
if anything will cause a rebellion, THIS would be it. people HAVE paid into the fund and they do have a right to expect a payback after working 3/4 of their lives.
maybe if we had less wars (...) we'd be able to support OUR OWN FRIGGIN PEOPLE.
we all will retire. this affects us all.
I'm tired of stealing from our own people to line pockets of the aristocracy.
they better hope there is money in the fund. even old guys can put up a fight if they are pushed to poverty.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.
Although I enjoy cranky anti-government fantasies too, it's better to stay closer to reality. The Republicans are beating this anti-Social Security line because they want to say, "Social Security isn't going to be there for you, so let's end it and save you all those tax deductions" (which are the lowest in the developed world).
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/cockroach-ideas/
Conscience of a Liberal
Cockroach Ideas
By PAUL KRUGMAN
March 13, 2011, 12:57 pm
“the Social Security trust fund doesn’t exist”
If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, “Let’s increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people,” he would have faced a political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was politically in a different box – you might even call it a lockbox – from Reagan’s tax cuts.
Their answer to the pretty good numbers is to say that the trust fund is meaningless, because it’s invested in U.S. government bonds. They aren’t really saying that government bonds are worthless; their point is that the whole notion of a separate budget for Social Security is a fiction.
But there are two problems with their position.
The lesser problem is that if you say that there is no link between the payroll tax and future Social Security benefits – which is what denying the reality of the trust fund amounts to – then Greenspan and company pulled a fast one back in the 1980s: they sold a regressive tax switch, raising taxes on workers while cutting them on the wealthy, on false pretenses. More broadly, we’re breaking a major promise if we now, after 20 years of high payroll taxes to pay for Social Security’s future, declare that it was all a little joke on the public.
The bigger problem for those who want to see a crisis in Social Security’s future is this: if Social Security is just part of the federal budget, with no budget or trust fund of its own, then, well, it’s just part of the federal budget: there can’t be a Social Security crisis.
Except the entity who issued the bonds in this case is also the one paying the value plus interest. Therefore, you need the thousand dollars in the other jar to pay for the securities, and then you have to find money elsewhere to pay the interest on those thousand dollar securities. Assuming that, unlike the government, you haven't already spent the thousand dollars in the jar.