Staff and budget cuts jeopardize Social Security

By Steve Kofahl

George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, and we fought off those efforts during his second term. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction will soon consider benefit cuts in the name of deficit reduction, and we are gearing up to defeat those proposals as well. But a more insidious attack has been underway for more than a quarter century. Deep cuts have been made in the spending and staffing needed to properly run the Social Security Administration (SSA), and bad management decisions have harmed service delivery.

In spite of these problems, the public has been generally well-served due to the commitment and dedication of front-line SSA employees. However, proposals from Congress, and decisions being made by the SSA Commissioner and his subordinates, may soon rob the employees of the capacity to continue that proud tradition. If the public loses confidence in SSA's ability to deliver quality service, Social Security itself becomes far more vulnerable to attack from the program's enemies. Recent surveys by the Agency show that the public is already becoming less satisfied.

Between1985 and 1989, President Reagan and SSA Commissioner Dorcas Hardy cut staff through attrition, from about 83,000 to 62,000 positions. A hostile labor-management relationship was established in the Agency at the same time. Pressure from Congress and the public led Reagan to replace Ms. Hardy with Gwendolyn King, who stopped the staff cuts and healed SSA's relationship with AFGE.

With the arrival of George W. Bush, an adversarial labor-management relationship was again established, while thousands of front-line positions were chopped through attrition. President Obama restored those lost positions, but ignored recommendations made by his transition team, and by the AFL-CIO (including the Washington State Labor Council) to replace Bush's SSA Commissioner, Michael J. Astrue. It isn't just labor that has problems with Astrue's oligarchic management style. Well-respected senior Agency officials at Headquarters who dared to express views different than his have been fired, or threatened with firing.

Current year funding of SSA operations is nearly $1 billion less than the President requested, and there has been a near-total hiring freeze for most of the past year. Republican proposals have been made to gut staffing and spending at all Federal agencies, including SSA.

Using spending constraints as an excuse, Astrue stopped sending annual Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate (PEBES) statements to workers early this year. That means that wage posting errors are not revealed in time for them to be easily corrected. AFGE and the Alliance for Retired Americans are considering legal action in response to this suspension of PEBES, since the issuance of the statements is required by law.

The Commissioner has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent years to steer the public toward Internet self-service when they apply for benefits, and to encourage and train third parties (some of whom charge fees) to perform the work traditionally done by the Agency's Claims Representatives. SSA employees find that numerous errors are made when the public uses these alternate service methods. Early this year, Astrue closed 300 contact stations where SSA employees made themselves available to serve clients who had difficulty getting to field offices, and reportedly told Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown that he intends to close as many as one-half of the Agency's 1300 field offices.

Since that time, dozens of offices have been targeted for closure (see the July Retiree Advocate regarding Seattle office closures). A few weeks ago, hours of service were cut by 30 minutes at the end of the day in each of the Agency's field offices, to reduce the need to pay employees overtime for late interviews.

New leadership is needed that would repair the damaged labor-management relationship, so that SSA employees would again have a voice at work, with their ideas considered when the Agency makes decisions about how to save money. Elimination of unnecessary middle management Headquarters and Regional Office positions that do nothing to improve service might be a good place to start.

Because just 0.9% of income is used to administer the program, and because the Trust Funds continue to receive more money than is paid out in benefits, there is enough money to restore quality public service delivery by trained SSA employees. Administrative funding should be taken off-budget, and not be subject to arbitrary spending caps, since Social Security is self-funded and workers already have paid for the quality service delivery that they need and deserve.

Please contact your Senators, and ask them to be our champions on these issues!

(Steve Kofahl is president of Local 3937 of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO and a member of the PSARA Executive Board.)