SSA administers three major federal programs that provide benefits to more than 50 million people. The Old Age and Survivors Insurance program provides benefits to retired workers and their dependents and survivors. The Disability Insurance program provides benefits to disabled workers. Supplemental Security Income provides income for aged, blind, and disabled individuals with limited incomes and resources. Heading SSA is a Commissioner who leads a central office in Baltimore and 10 regional offices. The field organization, which is decentralized to provide service at the local level, includes approximately 1,300 field offices. Federal law prohibits discrimination against employees and applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability (see app. II for more details about antidiscrimination laws). Under EEOC regulations, employees or applicants for employment who believe that they have been discriminated against by a federal agency may file a complaint with that agency. Before filing a complaint, the employee must consult an EEO counselor at the agency in order to try to informally resolve the matter. The employee must contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of the matter alleged to be discriminatory or, in the case of a personnel action, within 45 days of the effective date of the action. EEO counselors should determine if the employee believes that his or her problem is the result of one or more of the allowable bases—race, color, sex (including equal pay), religion, national origin, age (40 and over), or disability—or in retaliation for having participated in an activity, such as filing a complaint, that is protected by the various antidiscrimination statutes. Counselors are to advise individuals that, where the agency agrees to offer alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the particular case, they may choose to participate in either counseling or in ADR. After the counselor determines the basis or bases and claims, he or she is to conduct a limited inquiry of the matter, which generally involves speaking or meeting with the two parties. When the counselor has a good grasp of the issues involved, he or she is ready to attempt resolution. Resolution means that the employee and the agency come to terms with the matter and agree on a solution. In seeking resolution, the counselor is to listen to and understand the viewpoint of both parties and act as a neutral and not as an advocate for either the employee or the agency. Counseling is to be completed within 30 days from the date the employee contacted the EEO office for counseling. If the matter is not resolved by the 30th day of counseling or if ADR is unsuccessful, the counselor is required to inform the employee in writing of his or her right to file a formal discrimination complaint with the agency. The written notice must inform the employee of the (1) right to file a discrimination complaint within 15 days of receipt of the notice, (2) appropriate agency official with whom to file a complaint, and (3) duty to ensure that the agency is informed immediately if the complainant retains counsel or a representative. After a complainant files a formal discrimination complaint, the agency must decide whether to accept or dismiss the complaint. If the agency dismisses the complaint, the complainant can appeal the dismissal to EEOC. If the agency accepts the complaint, it must investigate the complaint and present the complainant with a report of the investigation results. The complainant may then choose between requesting a hearing before an EEOC administrative judge or a final decision from the agency. Because SSA requires all employees to file formal complaints with its headquarters in Baltimore, the formal process was outside of the scope of our review. Appendix II provides additional information on the processing of employment discrimination complaints. SSA’s national workforce is predominantly women—about 71 percent in fiscal year 2002—and Region X’s workforce mirrors this in all ethnic groups. For each of fiscal years 1997 through 2001, about two-thirds of all Region X employees were women. The majority of Region X employees were age 40 and over, constituting about three-quarters of the workforce in each year. The number of employees with disabilities increased slightly from about 10 percent in fiscal year 1997 to 11 percent in fiscal year 2001. Over the 5-year period, most of the Region X workforce was in the general schedule (GS) grade levels 5 through 12. The distribution across grade levels by EEO group varied somewhat but was generally close to the representation of the various EEO groups in the Region’s workforce. The main differences were higher proportions of men in the GS-13 through 15 grade levels and higher representation of African Americans and Hispanics in the GS-5 through 8 grades. As discussed in the section on hiring, substantial numbers of African Americans and Hispanics have been hired over the last few years, which may explain their higher representation in grades GS-5 through 8. See appendix III for a discussion of grade levels by EEO group. Figure 1 shows the Region X workforce by EEO group for fiscal years 1997 and 2001. From fiscal year 1997 to fiscal year 2001, the EEO group that experienced the largest increase in its percentage of the workforce was Hispanic women, who almost doubled from 57, or 3.3 percent of the workforce, to 120, or 6.5 percent. This increase was followed by that of Asian women, who increased by almost two-thirds from 55, or 3.2 percent of the workforce, in fiscal year 1997 to 93, or 5.0 percent of the workforce, in fiscal year 2001. The percentage of the workforce represented by White men and women and by AIAN women declined over the 5-year period. To judge its diversity, SSA compares its workforce with the Civilian Labor Force (CLF). Because the CLF data SSA uses are based on 1990 census data, we also calculated regional civilian workforce (CWF) data of those age 18 and older in the four states covered by Region X for fiscal year 2001, based on 2001 Current Population Survey data. Table 1 shows data on the composition of the Region X workforce in fiscal years 1997 and 2001 and compares those workforces to data on the CLF and CWF. Region X generally had a higher or equal representation of minority employees in its workforce for all EEO groups compared with both the CLF and the CWF, except AIAN men in fiscal years 1997 and 2001 and AIAN women in fiscal year 2001. In addition, the representation of White men in the Region was below the CLF and the CWF for both fiscal years 1997 and 2001. We reviewed the EEO groups of those individuals who in fiscal years 1997 through 2001 were hired, promoted, separated, or received awards or against whom Region X took adverse actions. For most of the personnel actions we reviewed, our analysis showed no statistically significant differences among EEO groups, but it did show statistically significant differences for some types of awards and adverse actions. The analysis showed statistically significant differences among races and between the sexes concerning quality step increases for fiscal year 2001. We also found statistically significant differences by race/ethnicity for nonmonetary, or honor, awards. Our statistical analysis showed no significant differences among EEO groups for written reprimands; however, it showed statistically significant differences among races for suspensions and statistically significant differences between the sexes concerning involuntary separations. Human capital management principles include certain internal safeguards to help achieve consistency, equity, nondiscrimination, and nonpoliticization in the performance management process. One of these safeguards can be reviewing the results of personnel actions for statistically significant differences across groups. According to a Region X official, the Region has not reviewed such differences to uncover their causes or to determine their appropriateness. From fiscal 1997 through fiscal year 2001, hiring among all minority groups except AIAN men and women increased as a percentage of those hired. The largest increase occurred among Hispanics. Hiring of Hispanic women increased from 9, or 5.1 percent of all hiring, in fiscal year 1997 to 21, or 9.8 percent in fiscal year 2001. Hiring of Hispanic men increased from 4, or 2.3 percent of all hiring, in fiscal year 1997 to 14, or 6.5 percent in fiscal year 2001. According to SSA officials, one of the reasons for the increase in Hispanic hires was that in fiscal year 1998 the Region hired 57 Spanish language bilingual telephone service representatives when Spanish language calls began being routed to the Auburn Teleservice Center as part of the national phase-in of the “direct-in” option of service for the Spanish- speaking public. African American women had the largest decrease in the percentage of hires they represent, and the percentage of AIAN men and women declined slightly. Figure 2 shows hiring in Region X by EEO group for fiscal years 1997 and 2001. All EEO groups were hired at rates that were above their representation in the workforce, except White men and women. Promotions involve either the selection of a current or former federal employee for a higher grade position, using procedures that compare the candidates on merit (i.e., competitive promotions), or promotion of an employee without competition when the employee had earlier been competitively selected and had demonstrated readiness for the next grade (i.e., career ladder promotions). Because career ladder promotions do not involve current competition, we focused on competitive promotions. We calculated the percentage of promotions received by members of each EEO group over the 5-year period and compared it with the group’s average percentage of the workforce overall. This comparison showed that most EEO groups were promoted at a rate that was generally about the same as or somewhat higher than each group’s average percentage of representation in the workforce for the period. African American men and White women had the largest positive percentage difference (1.1 percent) between their percentage of competitive promotions and representation in the workforce. Only White men and African American women were promoted at rates lower than their average percentage of representation in the workforce, with a 2.2 and 1.0 percentage difference, respectively.