Income Security Issues Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years 1996-97 (Letter
Report, 06/01/96, GAO/IAP-96-17).
GAO presented its Income Security issue area plan for fiscal years 1996
and 1997.
GAO plans to: (1) promote more efficient, cost-effective government
services; (2) evaluate the Social Security Administration's (SSA)
services and operations; (3) identify opportunities to manage welfare,
retirement, and disability programs more efficiently; (4) evaluate
federal and state efforts to preserve families and protect children; (5)
identify waste, fraud, and abuse in social programs; (6) assess how SSA
balances serving the public and managing its limited resources; and (7)
evaluate SSA reengineering implementation plans.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: IAP-96-17
TITLE: Income Security Issues Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years 1996-97
DATE: 06/01/96
SUBJECT: Income maintenance programs
Welfare benefits
Retirement benefits
Reengineering (management)
Cost control
Fraud
Cost effectiveness analysis
Program abuses
Disability benefits
Child abuse
IDENTIFIER: Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program
AFDC
Supplemental Security Income Program
Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance Program
Social Security Disability Insurance Program
Social Security Trust Fund
Medicaid Program
Medicare Program
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a **
** GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter **
** titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. Major **
** divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters, **
** Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and **
** single lines. The numbers on the right end of these lines **
** indicate the position of each of the subsections in the **
** document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the **
** page numbers of the printed product. **
** **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but **
** may not resemble those in the printed version. **
** **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed **
** document's contents. **
** **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO **
** Document Distribution Center. For further details, please **
** send an e-mail message to: **
** **
** **
** **
** with the message 'info' in the body. **
******************************************************************
Cover
================================================================ COVER
Health, Education, and Human Services Division
June 1996
INCOME SECURITY ISSUES - ISSUE
AREA PLAN FOR FISCAL YEARS 1996
AND 1997
GAO/IAP-96-17
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
FOREWORD
============================================================ Chapter 0
As the investigative arm of the Congress and the nation's auditor,
the General Accounting Office is charged with following the federal
dollar wherever it goes. Reflecting stringent standards of
objectivity and independence, GAO's audits, evaluations, and
investigations promote a more efficient and cost-effective
government; expose fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in federal
programs; help the Congress target budget reductions; assess
financial and information management; and alert the Congress to
developing trends that may have significant fiscal or budgetary
consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs
original research and uses hundreds of databases, or creates its own
when information is unavailable elsewhere.
To ensure that GAO's resources are directed toward the most important
issues facing the Congress, each of GAO's 32 issue areas develops a
strategic plan that describes the significance of the issues it
addresses, its objectives, and the focus of its work. Each issue
area relies heavily on input from congressional committees, agency
officials, and subject-matter experts in developing its strategic
plan.
Income Security Issues focus on programs and policies at the Social
Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), and the Department of Labor (DOL), which account for
nearly 40 percent of all federal spending. Millions of Americans
rely on income security programs for financial support. However, the
high costs and rising caseloads of many of these programs are the
subject of congressional concern. Designed decades ago, some of
these programs, such as Aid to Families With Dependent Children, are
the object of major reform and experimentation; others, including
disability programs, are expected to be redesigned over the next few
years. On the pages that follow, we outline Income Security's most
significant planned work in the following pivotal areas:
-- ensuring that public assistance program funds are spent
efficiently and protected from fraud and abuse;
-- improving SSA's service to the public at reduced cost;
-- evaluating the adequacy of Social Security, and public and
private pension systems for future retirees;
-- redesigning the nation's disability programs to provide disabled
people with greater opportunities to work;
-- monitoring government efforts to move welfare recipients from
welfare to work and to reduce their dependence on welfare; and
-- assessing government efforts to preserve families and protect
vulnerable children.
Because events may significantly affect even the best of plans and
because periodic measurement of success against any plan is
essential, our planning process allows for updating the plan
responding quickly to emerging issues. If you have any questions or
suggestions about this plan, please call either me or Diana Eisenstat
or Mark Nadel, Associate Directors, at (202) 512-7215.
Jane L. Ross
Director
Income Security Issues
CONTENTS
============================================================ Chapter 1
FOREWORD
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1
1
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2
4
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:3
8
TABLE III: GAO CONTACTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4
9
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
============================================================ Chapter 2
Issue Significance
---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------
Promoting a more efficient, Public assistance programs continue to be plagued
cost-effective government: by fraud, waste, and abuse, with billions of
How adequate are government dollars in overpayments to both eligible and
efforts to ensure public ineligible applicants. GAO's work and media
funds are efficiently reports have been critical of fraud, waste, and
spent? abuse in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
program, which has experienced tremendous growth
in recent years. Social Security Administration
(SSA) oversight and management of the SSI program
are lacking, and opportunities to increase program
efficiency are not pursued. The federal government
is also spending more than $2.6 billion to collect
child support for Aid to Families With Dependent
Children (AFDC) and non-AFDC parents but collected
less than 20 percent of the more than $35 billion
owed.
Improving SSA service and SSA administers retirement, survivor, disability,
operations: and welfare programs that annually provide over
How can SSA reduce costs and $300 billion in benefits to about 47 million
improve service to the recipients. With growing workloads and shrinking
public with fewer resources, SSA faces some significant challenges:
resources? better understanding customer needs and measuring
customer satisfaction, discovering and
implementing cost-effective service delivery
strategies, redesigning and automating processes
to improve agency performance and service to the
public, and supporting its workforce.
Ensuring adequate retirement The prospective retirement of the "baby boom"
benefits: generation raises questions about the ability of
Can the current Social Social Security, state and local governments, and
Security, public, and private pension systems to provide retirement
private pension systems incomes. The Social Security system, for example,
ensure adequate income for currently provides income to about 43 million
retirees in a society with beneficiaries (not including SSI-only
an aging population? beneficiaries). This number will grow rapidly
early in the next century as the baby boom
generation retires. While the Social Security
Trust Funds are expected to grow to more than $3
trillion by 2020, the funds are expected to be
exhausted by 2030. Modifications to the program
(including some benefit reductions) will need to
be made if most benefit promises are to be kept.
In addition to questioning the adequacy of funding
for Social Security benefits, many are concerned
with the overall adequacy of retirement income.
Redesigning disability Over 7 million Americans receive Disability
programs: How can federal Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income
disability programs be (SSI) cash benefits at an annual cost of $60
redesigned to take advantage billion, plus $50 billion more for Medicaid and
of greater opportunities for Medicare coverage. SSA reports that fewer than 1
people with disabilities to out of every 500 beneficiaries on the disability
work? rolls ever return to work. However, promising
disability management progress in the private
sector and recent medical, technological, social,
and legal changes suggest that more people with
disabilities can work. Significant legislative and
programmatic changes would be necessary for SSA to
assist beneficiaries to develop this return-to-
work potential.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Objectives Focus of work
---------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
1. Identify fraud, waste, and abuse and Evaluate SSA efforts to ensure
internal control problems in SSI and integrity of SSI program.
welfare programs. Examine sufficiency of federal and
state efforts to address welfare
2. Identify opportunities to manage fraud.
welfare, disability, Social Security, Identify improvements to SSA's
and child support programs more overpayment collection practices.
effectively and at lower costs. Identify means to improve initial
and continuing eligibility decisions.
3. Examine federal and state Examine alternative financing
contributions to disability and child structures and state privatization
welfare programs. efforts for the child support
enforcement program.
Examine efficiency of alternative
means of delivering welfare services.
Determine whether multiple funding
streams in disability and child
welfare programs lead to duplication
of services or accountability
problems.
1. Assess how effectively SSA balances Examine SSA efforts to identify
serving the public and managing its customer needs and approaches to
limited resources. meeting its service delivery
challenges.
2. Provide information to the Congress Evaluate SSA's reengineering
on SSA's efforts to reengineer its implementation plans.
disability claims process. Assess SSA's overall performance.
3. Assess SSA's performance as an
independent agency.
1. Study issues related to Social Evaluate trends in factors
Security's long-term funding problems. contributing to Social Security's
funding problems.
2. Evaluate adequacy of various sources Examine options to address Social
of retirement income. Security's funding problems.
Assess trends in retirement income.
1. Examine potential for reducing the Examine alternative designs for
number of people coming onto the disability programs.
disability rolls. Determine feasibility of adopting
private and nonprofit return-to-work
2. Assess alternatives for helping programs.
beneficiaries to enhance their ability Assess work/earnings history and
to work. potential of applicants and
beneficiaries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue Significance
---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------
Moving from welfare to work: The federal goverment and the states spent about
What are the effects of $22 billion in fiscal year 1995 to provide AFDC
government efforts to move benefits to nearly 4.9 million families. The
welfare recipients into work Congress and the administration are currently
and reduce welfare considering sweeping changes to AFDC and related
dependency? welfare programs; states are already proceeding to
make changes. Proposed changes are aimed at
capping federal expenditures, reducing welfare
dependency, moving adult AFDC recipients from
welfare into the workforce, and giving states more
flexibility to design and manage programs.
Regardless of how welfare programs are
restructured, ensuring that federal funds are used
efficiently, and that programs are focused on
outcomes, will remain important.
Preserving families and Dramatic increases in child abuse and neglect,
protecting children: exacerbated by the drug epidemic and the growth in
How adequate are government single-parent families, have fueled public
efforts to preserve families dissatisfaction with the nation's child welfare
and protect vulnerable system. The federal government and the states will
children? face challenges in the years ahead, as they
attempt to operate this system more efficiently
and effectively within greater budget constraints.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Objectives Focus of work
---------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
1. Identify implementation issues and Monitor implementation of state
promising programmatic approaches in welfare experiments.
state welfare reform experiments. Assess capability of state and
county governments to evaluate and
2. Assist congressional efforts to report on implementation of waivers or
evaluate policies designed to ensure block grants.
that incentives are greater for work Evaluate availability of child care
than for welfare. for low-income workers.
1. Examine options to address and Determine the shortcomings in
prevent child abuse and neglect. federal and state efforts to address
child abuse and neglect.
2. Examine federal and state efforts to Evaluate how states are managing
minimize the time children spend in foster care caseloads.
foster care. Analyze federal contributions to
family preservation efforts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
============================================================ Chapter 3
Issue Planned major job starts
------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
Promoting a more SSA's overall management of the SSI program
efficient, cost- SSA's use of computer matching to identify
effective government ineligible SSI recipients in nursing homes
SSI income eligibility criteria for children and
adults
Appropriateness of family cap in the SSI program
Federal and state efforts to prevent and detect
welfare fraud
Adequacy of SSA's quality assurance program for
detecting and correcting program errors
SSA's use of computer matching, eligibility
reviews, and on-line access
SSA's use of waivers, suspensions, and penalties
for overpayments
Administrative feasibility of moving to a voucher-
based welfare system
Alternative financing structures for the child
support enforcement program
Federal, state, and local funding shares in
disability and child welfare programs
Improving SSA service and SSA's customer service plans and challenges
operations Assessment of SSA's 800 number telephone service
How can SSA improve its capacity to record earnings
reported for workers?
How can SSA better provide one-stop service?
Efficiency and accuracy of post-entitlement changes
to benefit amounts
Administrative Law Judge/Disability Determination
Service disability decision outcomes
Results of administrative officer position and
other reengineering pilot tests
Status of information systems needed to support
reengineering
SSA's performance in its first year as an
independent agency
Ensuring adequate Efforts of other countries to address Social
retirement benefits Security financing problems
Impact of further increasing Social Security
retirement ages
Retirement income policy issues
SSA's implementation of the windfall elimination
and government pension offset provisions
Investment options chosen by participants in self-
directed defined contribution plans
�Advantages/disadvantages of investing Social
Security assets in private securities
Redesigning disability Alternative means of making disability
programs determinations
Characteristics and prior return-to-work exposure
of SSA applicants and beneficiaries
Employability of disability applicants and
beneficiaries
Alternative systems for delivering and financing
return-to-work services
Impact of alternative disability decision-making on
program size and costs
Moving from welfare to Implementation of state welfare-to-work strategies
work Outcomes of state implementation of time-limited
welfare benefits
Extent to which current law and waiver policies
limit state welfare strategies
Coordination between state and local child support
and welfare programs
Child care issues for low-income workers
Comparability and utility of data on states'
changes to welfare programs
Preserving families and How are states addressing reports of child abuse
protecting children and neglect?
Should foster care be restructured to respond to
the drug crisis?
State efforts to reduce time for permanent
placement of foster care children
Impact of work requirements on child abuse and
neglect and foster care caseload
Protection needed for children of drug-addicted
families who are placed in foster care
State expenditures of federally provided family
preservation funds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE III: GAO CONTACTS
============================================================ Chapter 4
DIRECTOR
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.1
Jane L. Ross (202) 512-7215
ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.2
Diana S. Eisenstat (202) 512-7215
Mark V. Nadel (202) 512-7215
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.3
Cynthia Bascetta
David Bixler
Christopher Crissman
Cynthia Fagnoni
Roland Miller
Michael Packard
James Wright
Michael Blair (Atlanta Regional Office)
Robert MacLafferty (San Francisco Regional Office)
*** End of document. ***