For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10 a.m. EST

Tuesday, September 26, 2000

GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

SOCIAL SECURITY

ADMINISTRATION

SSA’s Letters to the

Public Remain Difficult

to Understand

Statement of Barbara D. Bovbjerg, Associate Director

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues

Health, Education, and Human Services Division

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Social Security, Committee

on Ways and Means, House of Representatives

United States General Accounting Office

GAO
Page 1 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

We are pleased to be here today to discuss the letters the Social Security

Administration (SSA) sends to the public. Each year SSA mails millions of

letters to applicants and recipients of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance

and Disability Insurance programs, commonly referred to as Social

Security, and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. These

letters tell the public whether they are eligible to receive monthly cash

benefits or whether their benefit amounts are changing. Because the

letters contain important information affecting people’s everyday lives,

they need to be clearly written and easy to understand. Recognizing this,

SSA has pledged to the public that its letters will clearly explain the

agency’s decisions so that the public can understand how and why SSA

made the decisions and what to do if it disagrees.

We have long been critical of SSA’s letters. In 1994, we testified before this

Subcommittee that many SSA letters, particularly those dealing with

Social Security overpayments, were difficult to understand.1 We found

letters that left out information necessary to understand SSA’s decisions,

presented information in an illogical order, or failed to clearly explain how

SSA had adjusted benefits. More recently, you asked us to assess SSA’s

progress in improving its letters. We have just completed that assessment

and are issuing our report on this subject to you today.2 My testimony,

which summarizes the key findings of our report, focuses on (1) the

problems that make SSA’s letters difficult to understand and (2) the status

of SSA’s actions to fix them.

We focused our review on four categories of automated, high-volume

letters to the public: (1) letters awarding Social Security benefits, (2)

letters adjusting Social Security benefits, (3) letters awarding SSI benefits,

and (4) letters adjusting SSI benefits.3 SSA mails about 14.2 million of

these letters each year.4 We focused on these letters because they reach a

1Social Security Administration: Many Letters Difficult to Understand (GAO/T-HEHS-94-126, Mar. 22,

1994).

2Social Security Administration: Longstanding Problems in SSA’s Letters to the Public Need to Be

Fixed (GAO/HEHS-00-179, Sept. 26, 2000).

3SSA characterizes its letters as automated or manual. SSA considers a letter automated if its

personnel input transaction data, such as a death or earnings report, and SSA’s systems generate the

letter without any other human intervention. If SSA personnel were involved in selecting paragraphs or

providing individualized data, then SSA considers the letter to have been manually prepared.

4SSA estimates that it mails about 250 million letters and forms annually to the public, including

claimants, workers, employers, and government agencies, on a wide variety of issues.

Social Security Administration: SSA’s Letters

to the Public Remain Difficult to Understand
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 2 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

large number of people and convey important information on their

eligibility for benefits or changes in the amount of their benefits—issues

that can significantly affect their lives. We used writing consultants to help

us develop the criteria to assess whether the letters communicated clearly

and to verify our assessment of the types of problems that occur in them.

We also interviewed SSA officials responsible for improving the agency’s

letters and reviewed documents on past and current evaluations of the

letters and its initiatives to improve them.

In summary, our work showed that the majority of letters in each of the

four categories we reviewed did not clearly communicate at least one of

the following key points: (1) SSA’s decision (that is, the action SSA was

taking on a claim that prompted the agency to send the letter), (2) the

basis for SSA’s decision, (3) the financial effect of SSA’s decision on

payments to the individual, or (4) the recourse the individual could take in

response to SSA’s decision. The lack of clarity was caused by one or more

problems, such as illogically sequenced information, incomplete or

missing explanations, contradictory information, and confusing numerical

information. An unclear explanation of the basis for SSA’s decision—that

is, not clearly explaining the program rules or facts on which SSA’s

decision was based—was the most widespread problem among the four

categories of letters. We also found one particular group of SSI award

letters in which none of the four key points was clear.

SSA acknowledges that these letters contain the problems we identified

and agreed the problems have existed for years; however, for many of the

problems, the agency has not taken any corrective action and, overall, the

agency has not placed a high priority on improving its letters. Many of the

problems we identified are not amenable to quick fixes but, rather, will

require a comprehensive revision of the language in the letters and

rewriting the agency’s software applications that generate them.

Competing demands for computer systems resources have led SSA to

repeatedly reschedule improvements to the Social Security benefit

adjustment letters, and a pending nationwide court case has led SSA to

delay improvements to the SSI award and benefit adjustment letters. SSA

recently announced plans to improve its Social Security benefit

adjustment letters and has begun a major initiative to improve its SSI

award and benefit adjustment letters. But it will be years before the

improvements are completed for most of these letters, even if there are no

more delays and SSA adheres to its current plans.

The Social Security program and the SSI program provide monthly cash

benefits to individuals who meet the programs’ eligibility requirements. In Background
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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fiscal year 1999, 44.5 million persons received a total of $382.8 billion in

Social Security benefits, and 6.6 million persons received $28.1 billion in

SSI benefits. The rules affecting eligibility and benefit amounts in these

programs can be complex. Once individuals are determined to be eligible

for Social Security or SSI benefits, changes in their circumstances, such as

changes in the amount of their income, disability, or marital status, can

affect their continuing eligibility for benefits or the amount of their

benefits.5 When SSA learns of these changes—either through its own

review processes or from individuals reporting changes in their

circumstances to the agency—SSA adjusts individuals’ eligibility status or

benefit amounts accordingly.

The process for improving SSA’s letters is complex as well. The

responsibility for improving letters is shared among various SSA offices,

including the office responsible for customer service, which helps identify

problems, and the program offices, which are responsible for further

analyzing the problems and drafting revised language. The Office of

Systems, however, plays a key role because implementing changes often

requires systems programmers to rewrite one of the multiple software

applications that SSA uses to generate letters. Each software application

has its own programmed logic to generate letters and its own language

database. Depending on the particulars of a transaction, each application

is programmed to select appropriate paragraphs from among the

numerous paragraphs in its language database, many of which were

written for use in multiple situations. Once the paragraphs are selected,

the software is programmed to complete paragraphs by filling in casespecific information from SSA’s master records and to sequence

paragraphs to assemble letters. These master records contain account data

for every beneficiary.

Many of SSA’s letters in our review do not meet the agency’s own

communication standard and do not meet generally accepted principles of

good communication. Social Security award letters, Social Security benefit

adjustment letters, SSI award letters, and SSI benefit adjustment letters do

not clearly communicate one or more of the following key points: SSA’s

decision (that is, the action SSA is taking on a claim that necessitated the

letter), the basis for its decision (that is, the program rules and facts on

which SSA based its decision), the financial effect of its decision on

5Our review did not include letters sent to individuals whose benefits were terminated because they

had been determined to be no longer disabled.

Problems in SSA’s

Letters Limit Their

Understandability
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 4 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

payments to the individual, and the recourse the individual has in response

to SSA’s decision. The unclear communication was caused by many of the

same problems we identified in SSA’s letters in 1994, such as illogically

sequenced information, incomplete or missing explanations, contradictory

information, and confusing numerical information.

Table 1 presents what we consider to be the most significant problems,

because of either their frequency or their potential to adversely affect the

individuals receiving the letters.

Table 1: The Most Significant Problems in Four Categories of SSA Letters

and Their Estimated Frequency

Key point Social Security letter SSI letter

Award Benefit adjustment Award Benefit

adjustment

Decision 80% of cover letters

do not include all

decisions that affect

payments

Basis for

decision

100% illogically

sequence

explanations of SSA’s

decisions

100% do not

explain

relationship

between program

rules and benefit

amounts

86% do not

clearly explain

relationship

between program

rules and

changes in

benefit amounts

Financial effect 86% lack clear

explanations of

adjustments

55% lack clear

statement of

timing or amount

of change in

benefits or other

problems

Recourse 95% do not

state how to

appeal

24% do not fully state

options for repaying

overpayments or how

to appeal

Note: We used two different approaches to quantify the frequency of problems in these

letters. For the letters awarding Social Security and SSI benefits, we identified specific

problems and obtained information from SSA about the number or percentage of letters

that included these problems. For the letters adjusting the amount of Social Security and

SSI benefits, we reviewed a statistical sample of 1 day’s production of letters.

As the table indicates, we found a variety of problems in the four

categories of letters.

• SSA’s decision was difficult to understand in Social Security benefit

adjustment letters because important information was not explained in the

cover letters but, rather, was buried in the attachments or not explained at
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 5 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

all. For example, a cover letter informed a claimant that she had been

overpaid about $600 but it requested that she repay about $2,200. The

explanation for the different amounts—SSA’s decision to also recover a

prior overpayment—was buried in the attachment. Another letter

mentioned three different overpayment amounts without explaining the

differences.

• The basis for SSA’s decisions were often difficult to understand because

the program rules or facts on which the decisions were based were

explained in complex language that was difficult to follow, were presented

in illogical order scattered throughout letters, or were not fully explained.

For example, no SSI award letter explained the relationship between

program rules and the amount of the SSI benefit. An SSI award letter

informed a claimant that she was awarded benefits for July 1999 through

November 1999 but that she would receive a benefit for October and

November lower than for the earlier months. The letter did not explain

why her benefit was reduced.

• The financial effect of SSA’s decision on payments to claimants was

difficult to understand in most Social Security and SSI benefit adjustment

letters because of conflicting information about when adjustments would

occur or whether benefits were increasing or decreasing and because of

unexplained numerical information used to support SSA’s computation of

benefit adjustments. For example, a worksheet attached to a Social

Security benefit adjustment letter included computations showing that, on

the basis of the claimant’s earnings, SSA should have withheld about

$2,700 in benefits. But on the very next line, the worksheet states that SSA

should have withheld about $2,000 in benefits. The letter did not explain

the $2,000 figure or the difference in the two amounts.

• The recourse available to claimants in response to SSA’s decisions on their

claims was difficult to understand in Social Security award and benefit

adjustment letters because of incomplete information. For example, the

cover letters for some of the benefit adjustment letters instructed

individuals to immediately repay the full Social Security overpayment

without informing them of other repayment options discussed in the

letters’ attachments. The Social Security award letters failed to inform

claimants that if they choose to appeal SSA’s decision, they have to do so

in writing.

Our report discusses these problems in detail, with examples of actual

letters.
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

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Now to illustrate problems in SSA’s letters, I would like to discuss one

particular type of SSI award letter—ones sent to applicants who have been

awarded benefits for previous but not future months. I have chosen an

example of this type of letter not because it is representative of all SSA

award and benefit adjustment letters—which, given the huge number and

types of letters SSA issues, no one example could be—but because it

illustrates in one letter problems in clearly communicating all four key

points. Also, although SSA has long been aware of problems in its SSI

award letters, the agency did not know about the particular problems in

this type of letter until we brought them to its attention.

Figure 1 shows key excerpts from a typical letter, sent on October 13,

1999, to a disabled adult who was awarded benefits for previous months

but not future months.6 This example illustrates (with passages we have

highlighted in bold type) the numerous contradictions, illogically

sequenced explanations, and incorrect statements common to these

letters. In 1998 and 1999, more than 100,000 individuals, or about 13 to 15

percent of all SSI awardees, received benefits only for previous months

and thus would have gotten a similar letter.

6This situation occurs when individuals’ circumstances change while they are waiting for SSA’s

eligibility decision on their application for benefits. Their circumstances make them eligible to receive

benefits for 1 or more months after they applied for SSI, but a change in their circumstances makes

them ineligible for SSI benefits in the current month. A common scenario involves disabled individuals

who meet the SSI program’s income limit only until they receive Social Security Disability Insurance

benefits. Their SSI payments stop once these benefits cause them to exceed the SSI program’s income

limit.
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Figure 1: Confusing Statements From an Actual SSA Letter
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

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Page 8 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

SSA’s decision is unclear because the letter shown in figure 1 goes back

and forth about whether the applicant is eligible or ineligible for SSI. For

example, the first sentence in the letter (“A”) informs the applicant that

she is eligible for SSI benefits, as does the first sentence on the second

page of the letter (“E”). She is also told on a subsequent page that her

benefits will continue if she is still disabled in the future (“H”). But

elsewhere in the letter, she is told that she is not eligible for SSI (“F” and

“G”) and that she will not be receiving any more payments (“C,” “D,” and

“E”).

The basis for SSA’s decision is unclear as well, because the letter

illogically tells the applicant that she cannot receive any more payments

because she is disabled and living in Massachusetts (“E”). Also, this

illogical reason for nonpayment is listed before the actual reason for

nonpayment—namely, her income (“F”).

The financial effect of SSA’s decision is unclear, because the letter makes

contradictory statements about the months for which benefits are payable.

First, the letter informs the applicant that she will receive $3,367.36 in

benefits for March through October 1999 (“B” and “D”), but later it

incorrectly states that SSA can pay benefits only for 1 month—March 1999

(“E”).7

Finally, the recourse available to the claimant is unclear, because the letter

incorrectly informs her that she must file a new application before she can

receive any more benefits (“I”). The letter does not explain that under SSI

program rules, monthly benefits can resume without the need to file a new

application if she becomes eligible again within 12 months.

SSA has been aware for several years of the more serious problems we

found with three of the four categories of letters we reviewed—those

adjusting Social Security benefits, those adjusting SSI benefits, and those

awarding SSI benefits. The agency considers sending clear letters an

important element of customer service, and it specifically targeted these

letters for improvement, yet it has taken only limited actions to improve

them. Its efforts have focused primarily on the changes that are the easiest

to complete. The more serious problems we found require more

comprehensive revision of language and rewriting of software

applications. Planned changes have been repeatedly rescheduled because

7This incorrect statement occurs in these letters only when individuals receive more than 1 month’s

past due benefits—a common scenario, according to SSA.

Needed

Improvements Are

Still Years Away
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 9 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

SSA did not have the computer systems resources available to implement

them because of other priorities. SSA has recently announced plans to

make the needed improvements to these three categories of letters.

However, SSA has not established meaningful performance measures to

monitor its progress in improving the letters.

Since at least the early 1990s, SSA has known about problems with the

Social Security benefit adjustment letters, the SSI award letters, and the

SSI benefit adjustment letters that we identified as being the most

problematic. The agency agrees that these letters are among the least

understandable and most sensitive of the agency’s high-volume mailings.

Annually, SSA sends out about 3.5 million Social Security benefit

adjustment letters, 0.6 million SSI award letters, and 3.3 million SSI benefit

adjustment letters.8 In various strategic and performance plans, SSA has

identified sending customers clear letters as an element of good service.

Beginning with its fiscal year 2000 performance plan, SSA specifically

targets improving these three letters as a strategy that would increase

customers’ overall satisfaction with the agency. Improving its letters is

listed as one of the agency’s key initiatives.

Despite acknowledging numerous problems with the three categories of

letters, SSA has completed only one minor improvement to one letter—the

Social Security benefit adjustment letter. As we noted in table 1, we found

that 86 percent of these letters lacked a clear explanation of adjustments

to benefits. In July 1999, SSA added a worksheet to this letter to show how

the agency computed the amount it underpaid or overpaid individuals on

the basis of their earnings. However, SSA officials view the worksheet as

an interim improvement because SSA did not rewrite the master record.

The master record holds data on each individual and would have to be

expanded to hold additional data so that it could provide the appropriate

information to support the worksheet. We drew our sample of Social

Security benefit adjustment letters after SSA began including worksheets

with these letters. We found the worksheets helpful to some extent in

explaining how individuals’ earnings contributed to SSA’s decision that it

had underpaid or overpaid them. However, the worksheets sometimes did

not adequately explain some of the adjustments SSA made when

8Because of recently enacted legislation, Public Law 106-182, that eliminated earnings-related

reductions in benefits for beneficiaries who have reached full retirement age, the volume of Social

Security benefit adjustment letters sent to individuals will decrease in the future, but SSA has not

determined exactly by how much.

SSA Has Made Little

Progress in Improving

These Letters
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 10 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

computing underpayments or overpayments, in part because doing so

would require rewriting the master records.

In addition to the completed change described above, SSA recently began

to address two of the problems we identified during the course of our

present work. First, the agency has taken steps to include language that

had been omitted from Social Security award letters informing individuals

of the form to use to appeal the agency’s decisions. After we brought this

problem to SSA’s attention, SSA officials told us that the responsible

program office has developed revised language that the Office of Systems

plans to implement in November 2000. SSA has also initiated action to

correct the error in SSI award letters sent to individuals eligible for

benefits in previous months but not current benefits, shown at “I” in figure

1. SSA officials told us that when the agency releases its next set of SSI

systems changes in October 2000, they plan to add language to the letters

to correct this problem.

Office of Systems officials told us that from a systems standpoint, these

types of problems are the easiest to correct because they involve a straight

substitution of language—one paragraph replaces another paragraph that

had been used for the same situation. This type of revision is relatively

straightforward because the software logic for selecting the paragraph for

insertion into a letter does not have to be revised. SSA could therefore act

relatively quickly to correct these two problems.

SSA has made less progress in correcting problems that are more difficult

to fix. As shown in table 2, the other problems we found would require

significant work to revise the language of the letters and to rewrite the

master records and software applications.

It Will Take Years for SSA

to Make Comprehensive

Improvements to Letters
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

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Table 2: The Comprehensive Improvements Needed for Selected SSA

Letters

Letter Improvement

Social Security

benefit adjustment

Revise language, rewrite program’s master record, and

rewrite software application so that

• Cover letter discloses all decisions discussed in

attachment

• Work-related earnings rules are co-located and logically

sequenced

• Letter clearly explains decision’s effect on payment to

individual, and

• Letter completely explains available recourse

SSI award Revise language, rewrite program’s master record, and

rewrite software application so that

• Letter adequately explains the basis for the decision and

• Letter explains the relationship between program rules

and benefit amount

SSI benefit adjustment Revise language, rewrite program’s master record, and

rewrite software application so that

• Letter adequately explains a decision’s effect on

payment, particularly how and when adjustments will be

made for past months’ overpayments or underpayments

Office of Systems officials told us that the actions the agency would need

to take to make the comprehensive changes that the three letters need are

the most complicated from a systems perspective because they involve

extensive work to revise or develop new paragraph language, to rewrite

the software application—including the selection and sequencing criteria

for using the language—and to rewrite the programs’ master records to

hold additional data that may be necessary to support proposed language

changes.

SSA’s ability to make these comprehensive improvements to the three

letters depends on the agency’s allocating significant systems resources.

When allocating systems resources, SSA appropriately gives highest

priority to projects that help the agency maintain operations essential to

its mission or that it needs to undertake in order to implement legislative

changes to the Social Security and SSI programs. Resources not

committed to these efforts are available for SSA to use for discretionary

projects, and senior officials collectively determine which discretionary

projects the agency’s systems staff will work on, based on each project’s

ranking and expected contribution to SSA’s strategic objectives. However,

the relative priority SSA gives projects can change. For example, SSA may
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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decide to shift priorities and discontinue, delay, or deemphasize a specific

project to undertake others in cases in which SSA does not have systems

staff available.

SSA has long had plans to make comprehensive improvements to one of

the categories of letters—the Social Security benefit adjustment letter.

According to SSA documents, by 1996, SSA had developed and tested in

focus groups comprehensive language changes for this letter. However,

SSA’s documents showed that since developing the language, the agency

has repeatedly rescheduled the systems work required to implement the

new language. Officials from SSA’s Office of Systems told us that their

computer systems staff did not work on projects at the scheduled times

because the agency had had to divert computer programmers to other

more pressing projects, such as those required to implement significant

program changes resulting from legislation and to ensure that SSA’s

computer systems were year 2000 compliant.9 They told us that the

agency, with the emergence of workloads arising from legislative changes,

had to shift priorities away from working on improvements to letters.

In July 2000, an SSA official told us that the responsible program office

had recently requested that SSA senior officials designate the project to

improve Social Security benefit adjustment letters as Customer Targeted

Work. This is a relatively new category for the use of discretionary

resources and would give the project a higher priority than it has had

before.10 Although SSA is in the early planning stage of this effort, the

Office of Systems has established a plan for completing the more

comprehensive improvements by July 2002. However, because SSA’s

decision is recent, we did not evaluate the revised approach.

SSA has not made comprehensive improvements to either type of SSI

letter and has only recently begun developing action plans for improving

them. SSA officials told us that they postponed plans to improve SSI award

and benefit adjustment letters pending the outcome of the recently

decided court case, a class action law suit that an SSI recipient initiated. In

that case, the court upheld the plaintiffs’ claim that SSA’s letters denied

9For example, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public

Law No. 104-193) made major changes to the SSI program. Among other things, it revised the criteria

under which children and noncitizens are eligible for benefits and added restrictions governing the

payment and use of certain large retroactive benefit amounts.

10Key initiatives requiring systems work and Customer Targeted Work must provide a significant

return on investment or help meet agency strategic goals. However, to be given the higher priority of

Customer Targeted Work, a sponsoring component is required to substantiate the need for extra

attention and prioritization.

Social Security Benefit

Adjustment Letters

SSI Letters
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

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recipients due process because the letters did not adequately explain the

basis for SSA’s decisions. The court ordered SSA to revise its automated

SSI financial eligibility letters—including its SSI award and benefit

adjustment letters—to more clearly communicate essential information to

their readers.11 SSA established a workgroup to review its SSI letters and

to determine the changes that were needed to improve them. In December

1999, the SSA Commissioner signed a decision paper in which he approved

the workgroup’s recommendations to make comprehensive changes to SSI

letters.

Improving SSI letters will take time. The workgroup recommended that

SSA implement the recommendations in phases, concentrating first on

better explaining how benefit amounts are determined. SSA has begun

work on some of these changes. In February 2000, SSA drafted and tested

with some SSI recipients a prototype worksheet to be added to SSI award

and benefit adjustment letters that shows how SSI benefits are computed

in the least complex cases—that is, the 90 percent of cases in which SSI

recipients have no income or only unearned income, such as Social

Security benefits. SSA plans to add the worksheet to the SSI letters by July

2002. SSA officials estimated that it could take 10 years to implement the

full range of planned improvements.

Despite acknowledging problems with its letters, SSA currently has no

performance measures for monitoring its progress toward improving

them. In the past, SSA surveyed customers about their overall satisfaction

with the agency’s letters and monitored the percentage of customers rating

the clarity of SSA’s notices as excellent, very good, or good. The agency,

however, found that the information it collected, which was a measure of

general satisfaction with the letters, was not useful in identifying ways to

improve letters, so SSA discontinued these surveys. Instead, SSA now

relies on a relatively new program to help it target a few specific types of

letters each year and develop action plans for improving them. This

program—the Market Measurement Program—uses a variety of initiatives,

such as special studies and focus groups, to gather information on the full

range of services SSA provides to help the agency improve customer

service overall. According to SSA’s fiscal year 2001 performance plan, the

agency plans to establish a new indicator to monitor improvements to its

letters at a later point.

11Ford et al. v. Apfel, No. CV-94-2736 (E.D.N.Y., Jan. 13, 2000).

SSA Does Not Have a

Means to Measure

Progress in Improving

Letters
Social Security Administration: SSA’s

Letters to the Public Remain Difficult to

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Page 14 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

Although SSA has been aware for many years of some of the more serious

problems with its letters, it has not corrected them. The agency’s recently

announced plans to improve the Social Security benefit adjustment letter

and its SSI award and benefit adjustment letters will require significant

computer systems resources and will take years to complete. If SSA is to

improve its letters within a reasonable period of time, it needs to allocate

the necessary systems resources for these improvements. To do this, the

agency will need to better anticipate and plan for the varied demands on

its computer systems’ resources and place a higher priority on improving

its letters.

The agency will also need to develop appropriate performance measures

with which to hold itself accountable to the public for achieving these

improvements. These measures should help SSA monitor its progress in

adhering to the proposed timetables to help the agency stay on track. In

addition, because past changes to letters have not always significantly

improved clarity, SSA should develop other measures to assess whether

changes to the letters have achieved the intended results.

Because failure to implement the needed improvements will mean

continued poor service to the public in this area, we recommend that SSA

develop performance measures to hold itself accountable for making the

needed comprehensive changes to its letters. These measures should

include indicators to allow SSA to track its progress in making

improvements and to assess the improvements’ effectiveness. In

commenting on our report, SSA agreed with our recommendation and

expressed its commitment to making the needed improvements in these

letters as quickly as possible. SSA also outlined its plan for developing

performance measures for assessing beneficiaries’ understanding of its

problematic letters.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased

to answer any questions you or Members of the Subcommittee may have.

For more information regarding this testimony, please contact Barbara D.

Bovbjerg at (202) 512-7215. Others who made key contributions to this

testimony include Kay Brown, Jacquelyn Stewart, Ellen Habenicht, Valerie

Melvin, James Wright, Michael Alexander, Jay Smale, Ann McDermott, and

Patrick di Battista.

Conclusion

GAO Contact and

Staff

acknowledgments
Page 15 GAO/T-HEHS-00-205

Social Security Administration: Longstanding Problems in SSA’s Letters to

the Public Need to Be Fixed (GAO/HEHS-00-179, September 26, 2000).

Social Security Administration: Many Letters Difficult to Understand

(GAO/T-HEHS-94-126, Mar. 22, 1994).

(207113)

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Web site: http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

1-800-424-5454 (automated answering system)

Ordering Information

To Report Fraud,

Waste, and Abuse in

Federal Programs