Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 04:04 pm Post subject: Interesting #'s re SSA's budget and staffing
From Charles Hall's blog.
Aug 19, 2008
Why Service At Social Security Has Gone To Hell
Service has gone to hell at Social Security since the Bush Administration took office. Why? It is all a matter of budget priorities.
Social Security's operating budget for the 2001 fiscal year (FY) was $7, 223 million. That was the operating budget for the year in which the Bush Administration took office. For the current FY Social Security's operating budget is $9,864 million, which is a 36.6% increase. Of course, you have to allow for inflation. Between October 2000 and July 2008 the inflation rate was 26.4%. This means that there was a net gain in Social Security's operating budget during the Bush Administration after inflation of about 10.2%.
As of September 2000, the closest date to when the Bush Administration took office for which I can find figures, Social Security had 64,521 employees. As of March 2008, the most recent date for which figures are available, Social Security had 60,465 employees, a 6.3% decrease.
After inflation Social Security's operating budget increased by 10.2% over about eight years, while the number of employees decreased by 6.3% over about the same time period.
The extra money appropriated to Social Security plus the money saved by not replacing employees must have gone to contractors. If that money had not gone to contractors I can make a rough guess that the Social Security Administration would now have about 10,000 to 15,000 more employees than it has and I can say with certainty that Social Security would be giving much better service to the public.
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject: Re: Interesting #'s re SSA's budget and staffing
- wrote:
From Charles Hall's blog.
Aug 19, 2008
Why Service At Social Security Has Gone To Hell
Service has gone to hell at Social Security since the Bush Administration took office. Why? It is all a matter of budget priorities.
Social Security's operating budget for the 2001 fiscal year (FY) was $7, 223 million. That was the operating budget for the year in which the Bush Administration took office. For the current FY Social Security's operating budget is $9,864 million, which is a 36.6% increase. Of course, you have to allow for inflation. Between October 2000 and July 2008 the inflation rate was 26.4%. This means that there was a net gain in Social Security's operating budget during the Bush Administration after inflation of about 10.2%.
As of September 2000, the closest date to when the Bush Administration took office for which I can find figures, Social Security had 64,521 employees. As of March 2008, the most recent date for which figures are available, Social Security had 60,465 employees, a 6.3% decrease.
After inflation Social Security's operating budget increased by 10.2% over about eight years, while the number of employees decreased by 6.3% over about the same time period.
The extra money appropriated to Social Security plus the money saved by not replacing employees must have gone to contractors. If that money had not gone to contractors I can make a rough guess that the Social Security Administration would now have about 10,000 to 15,000 more employees than it has and I can say with certainty that Social Security would be giving much better service to the public.
Actually, it is probably a little worse than it looks.
In field operations, management has been backfilling with OS and MSS positions the last couple of years. As a result, there are more non-producing employees at the field level than in past years. To boot, the MSS position is not actually counted as a mangement position, even though they don't really do anything except management work.
It is not only SSA. It is across the federal board. Only in areas which have high military infrastructure spending is there growth in a Republican administration. And for that, the growth is so astronomical as to create record budget deficits, record trade deficits, and a dramatically devalued dollar. In that, the conservatives have an immature and hot-headed appetite for killing Marines.
Because our noses are stuck looking into the works at SSA, you and I only experience the disaster this has caused at SSA. Don't wear blinders. It is a disaster too for those who have made public service in peacetime their careers in almost all federal agencies.
The Republican approach to governance has sadly become the sincere and dedicated application of the maxim: "I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." http://tinyurl.com/5qhzh3
That means you, my hard-working government friends. It is your lifetime of service that they hold is such low esteem that they would destroy everything you have created. I assure you that the conservatives are not kidding about the tub. _________________ David Traver
Attorney
Traver & Traver, S.C.
P.O. Box 188
North Prairie, WI 53153-0188
262-594-2096
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