SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGN
OMB No. 0960-0544
A. Justification
1. Periodically, the Social Security Administration (SSA) conducts the Public Information Campaign. As part of this program, the agency releases public information materials, including public service announcements, news releases, and educational tapes, to public broadcasting systems so they can inform the public about various programs and activities conducted by the agency. Twice per year, SSA follows up the public information materials mailings by sending business reply cards to the public broadcasting centers who received these materials. The purpose of the reply cards is to help SSA monitor the usage and obtain feedback on our public information materials. SSA collects this information under the authority of Section 205(a) of the Social Security Act.
2. In the Public Information Campaign, an SSA contractor mails out the business reply cards following the mailing of public information materials. The contractor combines the results from the business reply cards and provides them to SSA. In turn, SSA uses this information to determine what media format and what markets the public broadcast media aired the materials. Ultimately, this will enable SSA to improve their public information materials. The respondents are broadcast television and radio media sources.
3. SSA has not scheduled this information collection for electronic implementation due to its relatively low volume of use.
4. The nature of the information SSA is collecting and the manner in which we are collecting it preclude duplication. There is no other collection instrument used by SSA that collects data similar to that collected here.
5. This collection does not affect small businesses or other small entities.
6. If SSA did not conduct this information collection, we would have no means of obtaining feedback on the public information materials we mail to the public. Since SSA conducts the information collection twice a year, the agency cannot collect it less frequently.
There are no technical or legal obstacles that prevent burden reduction.
7. There are no special circumstances that would cause SSA to collect this information in a manner inconsistent with 5 CFR 1320.5.
8. SSA published the 60-day advance Federal Register Notice on October 27, 2008 at 73 FR 63761, and we received no public comments. We published the 30-day advance Federal Register Notice on January 15, 2009, at 74 FR 2643. There have been no outside consultations with members of the public.
9. SSA provides no payment or gifts to the respondents.
10. SSA protects and holds confidential the information collected from this Public Information Campaign 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. Approximately 6,000 respondents (1,000 television stations and 5,000 radio stations) complete the business reply cards sent out as part of the Public Information Campaign twice a year, for a total of 12,000 annual responses. The average burden per response is 1 minute, for a total of 200 burden hours. The total burden represents burden hours, and we did not calculate a separate cost burden.
Collection Method |
Number of Respondents |
Frequency of Response |
Average Burden per Response |
Total Burden Hours |
Television |
1,000 |
2 |
1 minute |
33 |
Radio |
5,000 |
2 |
1 minute |
167 |
Total |
6,000 |
2 |
1 minute |
200 |
13. There is no known cost burden to the respondents.
The annual cost to the Federal government is approximately $75,000. This includes staff costs to collect the information and return mailing costs for the business reply cards.
15. This is an extension of a previously approved information collection. The public reporting burden of 200 hours is a new however, due to the decrease in the number of television and radio stations in the distribution list from previous years. Further, prior to ROCIS, we were unable to show the burden for the two information collections, the television public service announcement (PSA) and the radio PSA separately. Now with ROCIS, we are able to do so.
16. SSA will not publish the results of the information collection.
17. OMB has exempted SSA from publishing the expiration date for OMB approval on its forms. SSA produces millions of public-use forms, many of which have a life cycle longer than that of an OMB approval. SSA does not periodically revise and reprint its public-use forms (e.g., on an annual basis). OMB granted this exemption so that SSA would not have to stop using otherwise useable editions of forms with outdated expiration dates. In addition, we have avoided Government waste because we do not have to destroy and reprint stocks of forms.
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).
SSA does not use statistical methods for this information collection.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | August 2002 |
| Author | SSA |
| Last Modified By | Debbie |
| File Modified | 2009-03-04 |
| File Created | 2009-02-03 |