Social Security Is Going High-Tech Agency Using Web To Give Americans Additional Help

William Halter, deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, says he regards all Americans as customers.

And to reach those customers, he said in Spokane this week, the agency is making more help and information available on the Internet.

For the past six weeks, for example, seniors have been able to obtain replacement Medicare cards from the agency’s Web site: www.ssa.gov.

About 750,000 cards are replaced each year, Halter said.

Social Security has also introduced an electro nic newsletter, he said. For a free subscription, all an individual must do is submit an e-mail address.

Launching that service, Halter noted, cost only $25,000.

He said the agency is testing a program that will allow those nearing retirement to file for their benefits over the Web.

A national rollout should be ready by the end of the year, Halter said.

And the site also includes retirement planners that, given an income, can instantaneously produce an estimate of an individual’s Social Security benefits.

“We’re trying to move faster,” Halter said. “Our goal is to have the Social Security Administration lead the federal government in providing social services.”

The improvements will not come at great cost to taxpayers, he said.

Total administration expenditures for Social Security are about $7 billion. In the case of the retirement program, Halter said, administration costs represent less than 1 percent of benefits paid.

He said the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs rated the agency the most efficient in the federal government.

CIO (chief information officer) magazine awarded Social Security an award for its use of technology, he added.

Halter was in Spokane to participate in a ceremony in which 72 surplus Social Security computers were donated to Rogers and Riverside high schools.

The agency is retiring 90,000 machines that will be passed to school’s nationwide over the next three years.

Halter noted that not every Social Security initiative has been electronic. In 1998, the agency began providing 125 million Americans with estimates of their retirement benefits based on their current earnings.

Prior to his nomination to the Social Security post, Halter held several positions in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. He was also a private consultant.

The Stanford University graduate was a Rhodes Scholar.