We select the potential Statement recipients through the following steps:

On a weekly basis, the system systematically identifies SSN holders with a specified birth month from the Numident database. (We exclude records with a death indicator.) The selection pattern is designed to distribute the outgoing Statements throughout the nation so that the workload is spread as evenly as possible geographically.

The selected SSNs are run:

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  against the Statement History File to eliminate any SSN holders who have requested a Statement within the past 11 months;

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  against the MBR to eliminate individuals who are in primary benefit status or who are age 62 or older and secondary beneficiaries on another record; and,

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  against WMS control systems to eliminate individuals who have title II claims pending.

Any individuals identified in these screening processes are excluded from the automatic mailings at this point.

To determine current mailing addresses for the remaining potential recipients, we take the following steps:

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  All SSNs and names which were not eliminated are matched against the annual territorial taxpayer address files to identify mailing addresses for eligible individuals in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

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  After the territorial address match, remaining unmatched SSNs and names are transmitted to IRS weekly and matched against the IRS Individual Master File to obtain mailing addresses for individuals in the U.S., at APO and FPO addresses, and living in foreign countries.

If IRS has an address that matches the SSN and name, the address is transmitted to SSA. About 15 percent of the address requests result in a "no-match" response. Turnaround time for the IRS matching operation is one week. NOTE: The IRS provides addresses to SSA from its “Individual Master File” database. At times, the on-line IRS database accessed by their direct-contact employees to respond to inquiries will have an address that differs from the address provided to SSA via the batch process. Often, the IRS on-line data base has the current address. To assure that future Statements are prepared with the proper address, a taxpayer should complete form IRS-8822 to update the “Individual Master File”.

Using the MEF and NBR, we process the SSNs and names for which we locate addresses to produce the personal data for both automatic and on-request versions of the Social Security Statement. This system runs 5 nights a week, except for national holidays. At the conclusion of each run, the system sends data to the printing vendor for production of the Statements. A very small percentage of cases may require manual processing by the Office of Earnings Operations before a Statement can be prepared. This earnings record exception processing generally takes less than 30 days, and the record is automatically returned for completion of Statement processing.

SSA transmits the compiled personal data for the Statements electronically to the commercial contractor who prints and mails the forms. The contractor produces and mails about 600,000 Statements a day, 5 days a week, except for national holidays.