Trainman News

Information on Railroad
Retirement Act

D. A. MacKenzie, National Reporting Officer
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen

The following article appeared in the September 1952
issue of the Monthly Review, the publication of the Railroad
Retirement Board.

Since June 1950, considerable improvement has been
made in shortening the time required to pay unemployment
and sickness claims. It usually takes longer to pay the first
claim in a benefit year than it does to pay subsequent
claims. This is because it is generally easier to establish
continuity of benefit status than to determine eligibility for
benefits at the beginning of a spell of unemployment or
sickness.

Thus, about 85 per cent of the subsequent claims were
paid within 10 days after the end of the registration period,
as compared with 75 per cent of the first claims.

The latter figure -75 per cent
-appears to be somewhat better
than similar figures for the state
unemployment compensation
plans. Only figures on first pay-
ments are available for the state
plans, and these are not strictly
comparable to the Board's figures
because they exclude interstate
payments and because there are
important differences in the
methods of paying benefits.
The state figures which are
available show that over the past
year the proportion of first claims
paid within 14 days after the end
of the registration period was
about the same as the proportion
paid within 10 days by the Board.
The progress made since June
1950 in speeding up the payment
of claims has been accomplished,
not so much by changes in pro-
cedures, as by a constant effort
to increase efficiency of opera-
tions at all stages. For one thing,
the Board has continued to push
its educational program designed
to keep unemployment claims
agents and unemployment and
sickness claimants informed of
their rights and responsibilities.
As a result, more and more claims
are being filled out correctly and
submitted promptly.

Method Change

One important change in the
method of transmitting unem-
ployment claims to the Board has
contributed to prompt payment.
Since July 1951, unemployment
claims agents have sent claims
directly to the nearest Board field
office instead of routing them to
a countersigning agent who, in
turn, routed them to a regional
office. By June 1952, practically
all unemployment claims were be-
ing handled this way. The ad-
vantages gained by this change
results from several factors:
1. The field office can deter-
mine questions of eligibility with
less delay since it has closer con-
tact with claimants.
2. The field office can screen
out incomplete claims or claims
with apparent errors and have
them completed or corrected be-
fore they get to the regional
office. Thus, fewer - "problem"
claims reach the regional offices
in the first place, and fewer have
to go back to the field office for
investigation before payment can
be made.
3. The field office can check
readily on the work of the claims
agents and clear up misunder-
standings with less delay. This
also improves the quality of the
claims submitted and so simpli-
fies adjudication.
The relative importance of the
time required for different parts
of the claims process is shown
by more detailed studies of the
various steps in the process. The
most recent studies were for May
1952.
Generally speaking, the
claims received in that month
reached the regional offices
within five days after the end
of the registration period and
were processed and certified to
the Treasury Department, on
the day of receipt. The Treas-
ury office then issued a check
one or two business days later.
Thus, for the majority of
claims, benefits were paid within
seven or eight days after the
end of the registration period.
Claims for unemployment ben-
efits are paid somewhat more
promptly than claims for sick-
ness, but the difference is not as
great as it used to be. The princi-
pal reason is that first claims for
unemployment tend to come in
sooner after the end of the claim
period than those for sickness.
Generally. it takes longer for a
claim to reach the regional office
than it takes to certify it for
payment after it is received.
As might be expected, sub-
sequent claims are
processed
somewhat faster than first claims.
Also, somewhat less time is re-
quired to process first sickness
claims than first unemployment
claims. largely because of the ex-
amination work in sickness cases
is done at the time the application
is received. This offsets to some
extent the greater delay in re-
ceipt of first sickness claims.
The goal sought by the Board
was to certify 90 per cent of all
claims to the Treasury Depart-
ment on the day they were re-
ceiv ed in the regional offices.
This goal was achieved in May
1952, the last month for which
detailed information is available,
when 92 per cent of all unemploy-
ment claims, and 89 per cent of
all sickness claims, were certified
for payment on the day they were
received.
Only five per cent of the
claims of either type were held
in the regional office more than
one day before certification.
This is considered to be about
the maximum speed that can
be reached without sacrificing
accuracy. Thus, any further
shortening of time required to
pay claims can come only by
speeding up the transmittal of
claims to the regional offices.