Social Security: Opportunities to Improve Productivity at Program Service Centers

摘要

The report examines the productivity at the Social Security Administration's (SSA) six Program Service Centers (PSC). Productivity in this context means how much work the PSCs produce with available staff. The PSCs maintain most of the historical files on 34 million beneficiaries receiving SSA benefits and administer claims for all SSA beneficiaries, except those living abroad and those under age 59 who are disabled. The six PSCs employed about 13,000 full-time equivalent staff by the end of fiscal 1985, or about 16 percent of the total SSA staff. The report points out that SSA has been working to improve productivity, but it also points out that these efforts need strengthening and savings could be realized by doing so.