Monday December 28 9:56 AM ET
dailynews.yahoo.com
U.S. Social Security Chief Says Y2K Problems Solved
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Social Security administration has resolved year 2000 computer problems, and retirement checks will be on time when the new millennium arrives, the agency's chief said Monday.
''We have about 30-plus million lines that we have been working on to fix this issue and hundreds of people on the staff have been spending time on it, but it's now resolved,'' Social Security Commissioner Kenneth Apfel told NBC's ''Today'' show.
The White House planned a public even later in the morning to highlight Social Security's success after Apfel briefed President Clinton.
The Year 2000 or ''Y2K problem,'' also called the ''millennium bug,'' stems from an old programming shortcut that resulted in many computers being unable to recognize the date change of the new century, threatening turmoil. If left uncorrected, some computers could treat the year 2000 as the year 1900, generating errors or system crashes.
Apfel said his agency tackled the problem through ''plain old-fashioned hard work'' and by fooling the systems with tests that simulated that the year 2000 had already arrived. The immediate beneficiaries will be the estimated 46 million Americans who rely on Social Security checks each month.
''We had to bring in an independent contractor working with the Treasury Department and the Social Security Administration and do an outside evaluation and make sure that those checks were going to work and I can tell you that we just passed that (test) with flying colors,'' Apfel said.
''A year in advance, people can be sure that their checks are going to be there on time,'' he added.
Problems in Social Security computers would affect older Americans who rely on the checks to help them in their retirement. For example, an eligible recipient born in 1930 would be recognized as born in 1830 without the computer fix, and could be presumed dead and removed from the rolls.
Officials from other agencies have painted a less rosy picture of year 2000 efforts in their jurisdictions.
In April, Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer Downey told a Senate Commerce Committee that a mere quarter of the nation's critical air traffic control systems are certified as ready for the year 2000.
Federal Reserve Gov. Edward Kelley told the same Senate panel that large U.S. businesses will spend at least $50 billion to prevent massive failures from older equipment that could mistake the year 2000 for the year 1900.
Asked if he had offered his assistance to other agencies facing the millennium bug, Apfel said: ''We can, and we have, and we will.''
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