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Social Security preps to publicize its failure

"The system is broken," the president said Saturday. While some employees fight the message, the agency gets ready to go public with its plea.

By wire services
Published January 16, 2005

WASHINGTON - Over the objections of many of its own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to convince the public that private accounts are needed as part of any solution.

The agency's plans are set forth in internal documents, including a "tactical plan" for communications and marketing of the idea that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action.

Social Security officials say the agency is carrying out its mission to educate the public, including more than 47-million beneficiaries, and to support the president's agenda.

"The system is broken, and promises are being made that Social Security cannot keep," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. He is expected to address the issue in his Inaugural Address.

But agency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program. "Trust fund dollars should not be used to promote a political agenda," said Dana C. Duggins, a vice president of the Social Security Council of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 50,000 of the agency's 64,000 workers and has opposed private accounts.

Deborah C. Fredericksen of Minneapolis, who has worked for the Social Security Administration for 31 years, said, "Many employees believe that the president and this agency are using scare tactics to promote private accounts."

Social Security trustees say the program's financial problems will grow as baby boomers retire. The program will pay out more in benefits than it collects in revenue in 2018, they say. By 2042, they say, the trust fund will be exhausted, and tax income will be sufficient to pay only 73 percent of scheduled benefits.

Mark R. Lassiter, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration, said he could not discuss the agency's communications plans because they are "internal documents." The agency, he said, has a duty "to educate the public about the financial challenges facing Social Security," but has not prepared a script for employees to use in answering questions from the public.

The agency's strategic communications plan says the following message is to be disseminated to "all audiences" through speeches, seminars, public events, radio, television and newspapers: "Social Security's long-term financing problems are serious and need to be addressed soon," or else the program may not "be there for future generations."

The plan says that Social Security managers should "discuss solvency issues at staff meetings," "insert solvency messages in all Social Security publications" and spread the word at nontraditional sites like farmers' markets and "big-box retail stores."

Also, the document says, agency managers should observe and measure how much their employees know about the solvency of the program.

Bush has created a sense of urgency by declaring that "the crisis is now."

Witold R. Skwierczynski, president of the Social Security Council of the federation of government employees, said, "Some of the information being imparted by agency officials is not factual, not accurate. There is no immediate crisis."

In interviews, other Social Security employees expressed similar views. But council members were more willing to allow use of their names because a federal law generally protects them against "penalty or reprisal" when they speak publicly or testify before Congress.

Robert M. Ball, who worked at the Social Security Administration for three decades and was commissioner under Democratic and Republican presidents from 1962 to 1973, said, "It's fine for the agency to answer factual questions, but it's unusual to use the Civil Service organization to push a political agenda, especially because what they're saying is not true. The program is not going bankrupt."

[Last modified January 16, 2005, 00:34:19]