At a time when civil war's breaking out across the nation between union workers and non, regarding wages and benefits and the costs, I came across some interesting information.
One of the hot buttons about the U.S. economy is the so-called "third-rail" subject of social security. Because, according to many, the growing longevity of the population will soon break the bank if the government keeps paying those reaching eligibility age as it does now. So, I did some research.
The social security agency itself currently employs a full-time workforce of more than 68,800. They're operating at fiscal 2010 levels due to the failure of Congress to pass a 2011 budget, but the number is expected to reach 69,675 in 2012. What's more, the president included $12.5 billion for the agency in his 2012 budget request, representing a $1 billion increase over the 2010 level.
That seemed like a lot of people to me, and a lot of funds, so I did some simple arithmetic. There are an estimated 40,229,000 folks of retirement age in the U.S. right now. So if there are 69,675 social security employees, each is responsible for 577 people. If every one of those retirees needed personal attention, that equates to 48 per month, 11 per week and approximately 2.3 folks per day. And, if the average case took an hour of time, what do the employees do with the other 5.7 hours of their work day? My math tells me that there's 397,147 work hours left in which these employees have nothing to do.
Of course, my case isn't really accurate at all, it's just a hypothetical. Because today most of the social security process is automated. So, between computerization and on-line access, there's likely much less than 577 folks for each employee to handle. That means you can probably double or triple the hours that employees have left with absolutely nothing to do.
Now, I may not be the only one who's noticed that there may be too many folks on staff at present, because the agency reportedly is offering to let employees 50 and older choose early retirement, provided they've logged at least 20 years of service. Any employee with 25 years of service would also be eligible, according to an agency e-mail obtained by the Federal Times, with a negligible reduction in benefits for some workers under 55.
But let's say that perhaps the agency is overstaffed and now realizes it, hence the attempt to reduce its staff. That's a step in the right direction. But, there's still another question I have. If my arithmetic's right once more, a budget of $12.5 billion covering a staff of 69,000 people equates to $181,159.00 per person. So, isn't that a lot of money to pay out to deal with 2.3 clients a day?
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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