The National Directory of New Hires
(NDNH) is a federally mandated national repository of employment,
unemployment insurance, and quarterly wage information submitted by
state directories of new hires (SDNH), state workforce agencies
(SWA), and federal employers. Collecting NDNH information is
necessary to fulfill the federal child support enforcement
requirements and to help congressionally authorized state and
federal agencies administer certain benefit programs. The U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Child
Support Enforcement (OCSE) operates the NDNH under 42 U.S.C. §
653(i)(1). The information collection activities pertaining to the
NDNH are authorized by: 1) 42 U.S.C. § 653a(b)(2)(A), which
requires employers to report all newly hired employees to the SDNH
within 20 days after hiring; 2) 42 U.S.C. § 653a(e), which requires
states to enter the new hire information into the SDNH within five
days of receipt from the employer; 3) 42 U.S.C. § 653a(g)(2)(A),
which requires the SDNH to transmit the new hire information to the
NDNH within three business days of the data being entered in the
SDNH; 4) 26 U.S.C. § 3304(a)(16)(B) and 42 U.S.C. § 503(h)(1)(A),
which require state unemployment compensation agencies to report
wage and claim information to the NDNH; 5) 42 U.S.C. §
653a(g)(2)(B), which requires the SDNH to report wages and other
compensation to the NDNH quarterly; 6) 42 U.S.C. § 653a(b)(1)(C)
and 42 U.S.C. § 653a(b)(2)(A), which require federal employers to
report all newly hired employees to the NDNH within 20 days after
hiring; 7) 42 U.S.C. § 653(n), which requires federal agencies to
submit quarterly wages paid to employees during the previous
quarter to the NDNH, except for those employees performing
intelligence or counterintelligence functions, if the head of the
agency determines that such report would endanger the employee or
compromise an investigation or intelligence mission; and (8) 42
U.S.C 653a(b)(1)(B), which requires multistate employers to notify
the HHS Secretary about the state it designates for submissions.
This request is for a revision to the currently approved
information collection. Please see A.15 of Supporting Statement A
for an explanation about the changes.
The estimated new hires
manually reported by employers increased since the previous
approval while the number of new hires electronically reported
decreased; however, total new hires reported by employers increased
by approximately 256,698. State workforce agencies submissions
increased since the previous approval, but the number of quarterly
wage and unemployment insurance responses per respondent did not
change. The average annual number of new MSER forms increased since
the previous approval. The adjustments to the responses constitute
program changes and resulted in a net increase to the total burden.
The overall respondent burden changes resulted in an increase to
the estimated annual burden hours. The burden costs increased as a
result of wage increases. The NDNH record specifications underwent
changes to remove the unconventional date format to a standard
format. The MSER form underwent formatting changes and minor edits,
including removing the address for users to send hard copy forms
via the U.S. Postal Service.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.