Supporting Statement--0502

Supporting Statement for Form SSA-1588-OCR-SM

Beneficiary Recontact Report

20 CFR 404.703 and 404.705

OMB No. 0960-0502

A. Justification

1. Section 202(g)(1) of the Social Security Act states that a surviving spouse of an individual who died and was fully or currently insured shall be entitled to mother's/father's benefits, as long as this spouse is not married and an entitled child of the deceased is in his/her care. Under section 20 CFR 404.703 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Commissioner of Social Security is authorized to request information needed to decide whether entitlement to benefits continues. According to 20 CFR 404.705, benefits may be stopped if the requested information for establishing continuing entitlement is not received by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Form SSA-1588-OCR-SM is used to collect the information needed to make this determination.

2. SSA conducted research which indicated that young mothers/fathers and those with children ages 15-17 had a high probability of not reporting discontinued eligibility for survivors’ benefits (due to remarriage or no longer having entitled children in-care). However, these studies found that when requested to do so, the relevant parties would supply information to determine continuing eligibility status. Form SSA-1588-OCR-SM is used to collect this information. SSA sends this form to young mothers/fathers and in-care children receiving benefits on the following schedule: once a year for the first three years after entitlement, then six years after entitlement, and then nine years after entitlement. If beneficiaries use form SSA-1588-OCR-SM to report a new marriage, or if they fail to respond to two copies of this form sent 60 days apart, then benefits will be terminated. Respondents are recipients of Survivor mother/father Social Security benefits.

3. Form SSA-1588-OCR-SM is a pre-filled form, meaning that certain fields are completed electronically by SSA before the form is sent to the beneficiary. Because this is an Agency-initiated form on which SSA is required to pre-fill information before releasing these forms, we are not able to implement this collection electronically at this time. When new technology becomes available which would allow SSA to pre-fill this information and send it to the beneficiaries, SSA will reevaluate the possibility of making this form available electronically.

4. The nature of the information being requested and the manner in which it is collected preclude duplication. There is no other collection instrument used by SSA that collects data similar to that collected here.

5. This collection does not impact small businesses or other small entities.

6. If form SSA-1588-OCR-SM were not used, SSA would have no means of determining marital status and continuing eligibility for survivors’ benefits. This form is mandatory and failure to return the form could result in suspension/termination of benefits. Accordingly, this could result in an overpayment of undeserved benefits (if a beneficiary was no longer eligible and had failed to report it) or underpayment of benefits (if SSA automatically stopped benefits due to lack of information). Therefore, it cannot be collected less frequently. There are no technical or legal obstacles that prevent burden reduction.

7. There are no special circumstances that would cause this information collection to be conducted in a manner that is not consistent with 5 CFR 1320.5.

8. The 60-day advance Federal Register Notice was published on March 23, 2007 at 72 FR 13851, and SSA has received no public comments. The second Notice was published on June 13, 2007, at 72 FR 32697. There have been no outside consultations with members of the public.

9. SSA provides no payment or gifts to the respondents.

10. The information requested on this form is protected and held confidential in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 1306, 20 CFR 401 and 402, 5 U.S.C. 552 (Freedom of Information Act), 5 U.S.C. 552a (Privacy Act of 1974), and OMB Circular No. A-130.

11. The information collection does not contain any questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Form SSA-1588-OCR-SM is completed by approximately 133,400 respondents annually. The estimated completion time for the form is 5 minutes. Therefore, the total burden is 11,117 hours. The total burden is reflected as burden hours, and no separate cost burden has been calculated.

13. There is no known cost burden to the respondents.

14. The annual cost to the Federal Government is approximately $250,490. This estimate is a projection of the costs for printing and distributing the collection instrument and for collecting the information.

15. There are no changes in the public reporting burden.

16. The results of the information collection will not be published.

17. OMB has granted SSA an exemption from the requirement that the expiration date for OMB approval be printed on its program forms. SSA produces millions of public-use forms, many of which have a life cycle longer than that of an OMB clearance. SSA does not periodically revise and reprint its public-use forms, (e.g. on an annual basis). This exemption was granted so that otherwise useable editions of forms would not be taken out of circulation because the expiration date had been reached. In addition, government waste has been avoided because stocks of forms will not have to be destroyed and reprinted.

18. SSA is not requesting an exception to the certification requirements at 5 CFR 1320.9 and related provisions at 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

Statistical methods are not used for this information collection.

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