The Social Security Administration has increased its online services and taken other steps to compensate for a shrinking workforce and a growing workload, but it is still not ready for the Baby Boom generation. The Government Accountability Office reported that the number of people performing electronic transactions with Social Security grew by 27 percent during the past year, from 2.9 million in 2007 to 3.7 million in 2008, and worker productivity is increasing, reports Government Computer News. Nonetheless, this has been insufficient.

"The agency has responded with a number of strategies, including increased use of online, telephone and video services; load balancing by shifting work between offices and deferring less essential jobs," the GAO said. But despite an increase in average productivity of 2.9 percent since 2005, the amount of work actually done fell by 1.3 percent, the GAO found. "Staffing declines resulted in customers waiting longer to be served and difficulties for field offices in answering calls from customers," the report said.

The SSA said it has an IT Advisory Board that is responsible for long-range IT planning, and sees its IT investments as "critical to keeping pace with an ever-growing demand for our services." SSA's strategic plan released in 2008 calls for having half of all online retirement applications filed online by 2012 and one quarter of all disability claims.

"Online filing provides work efficiency to offset the impact of a part of the increase in claims," the agency said. The GAO said that while Social Security is encouraging customers to use automated services, the real gains will likely be achieved by future generations of customers.

For more on Social Security's headaches:
- see this GCN.com article