Running on Empty

By Elvin Bailey

Elvin Bailey

Pastor Maynard ably used secular examples to illustrate spiritual truths about the fuel required to run the Christian race. I, like many others, came away with new resolve to seek time with God daily in order to obtain the necessary fuel for the race. And afterwards, as I reflected and meditated on the message, I realised that the principles and concepts that he taught are applicable to the life and work of Social Security. Here’s how.

The Pastor stated that as we run our vehicles to the point of being low on fuel, orange warning lights appear on the dashboard. We can choose to take action or we can ignore the warning. But if we ignore the warning, eventually the vehicle will come to a complete stop. So, too, with our spiritual lives; and so, too, with Social Security. Neither system can run on empty!

Then the Minister posed the question of what causes ‘empty’ to happen in our lives? He listed 5 aspects that lead to emptiness: overload, leaks, ignorance, busyness, and lack of quality time. I will examine each aspect from a Social Security standpoint.

During our public discussions, whenever persons who had lived overseas shared an intervention, they were constantly amazed at the generosity of our Social Security system, and the level of input that it requires of its members. This is what one person wrote via email, (name withheld):-
 
“…Many people are getting benefits due to problems such as flu, back pain, etc. even though statistics list serious health problems in Nevis/St. Kitts as diabetes, heart, etc.  I think that this is the basic problem. Social Security here pays for sick time for minor sicknesses that many people can be expected to get during the year, even though these illnesses may not be serious, life-threatening, or debilitating. 
 
“In the US, workers cannot receive disability benefits under Social Security unless the illness has lasted or is expected to last 12 months or more, or is expected to result in death.  So even 2 broken legs or 2 broken arms does not entitle you to disability benefits, because this would not last for 1 year.
 
“You are paying benefits to people who are ill for as little as 3 days. You are paying benefits for people who may have no more than a cough, stomach upset, or the flu. Consequently you are paying a lot of benefits to a lot of people who in truth are not disabled but just mildly sick for a short period of time.  It seems to me that if you want to reform the system, you must toughen up the definition of illness or disability and require that the person be unable to work for much longer period than just 3 days.  This would eliminate paying benefits to people who have run-of-the-mill minor illnesses during the year and preserve funds for those who are truly ill or disabled and unable to work for a period of time due to a more serious health problem.”

This is just one example, and I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

And now to the issue of leaks. Leakage in Social Security comes about when people do not pay their dues, whether in full or in part. We are well aware of the fact that employees and employers individually and collectively seek ways to dodge their responsibility to Social Security. You should be well aware of our efforts to bring people to accountability through the Court system. While we have never prosecuted self-employed persons, we recognise that at approximately 30% compliance that most of these persons are not contributing at all. Much public annoyance has been expressed about this – we should note who the delinquents are and document their refusal to comply and deny them any benefit when and if they live to old age. Let us never lose sight of the fact there is leakage within the system that gives rise to an arrears list and to our work in the Court of Justice.

Some people will also argue that there is leakage in our investments in that we are not sufficiently diversified; and that our asset mix should include other instruments. Some will argue, too, that there is too much of our assets kept locally and that too much of our local assets are kept in one basket. As it turns out, that the basket is not so bad, given the state of the global financial market now.

A lot of leakage also occurs within the construction sector, especially at year end when they allow their policy to lapse, to leak out and have to refill it again in January. I am a tireless campaigner on this issue.

Ignorance. We will be kind and define ignorance as lack of knowledge. If ignorance exists after 31 years of operations, if ignorance exists after successfully settling millions of claims worth millions of dollars; if ignorance exists after all our public relations efforts, if ignorance exists after touching the lives of every citizen and resident of the Federation, then it is because the public does not want to know. And yet we see these ignorance everyday – no matter how many times we indicate that sooner or later the truth will be revealed. The latest form of such ignorance has come in the form of threats to our field officers (Inspectors) as they go about their duties. We may give more information about this situation in subsequent releases.

Business. (And yes, business too). A friend stopped me right after church and asked me whether his wife would get anything from Social Security if he were to die before her. He explained that even though they have been married for over 25 years, he never updated his information at Social Security. Another friend has two wives (not simultaneously) and wants to choose which one is worthy of his benefits. (He never did inform Social Security of his re-marriage). Both men were too busy to bother about a ‘small’ matter like this; and neither of them thought it was any of our business to be kept abreast of their status in life. Let me encourage us, once again, to periodically update the confidential information that is held at Social Security for you.

Finally, let us explore the emptiness that is caused when quality time is absent. Too frequently, the public contact with us is less than pleasant. They cuss us out; they pour scorn on the value of some of the benefits we provide, they bring political overtones into our work. Such contacts drain us of our energy. In such situations, nobody gains, everybody loses. You lose an opportunity to make a suggestion for change, you lose an opportunity to learn and we lose an opportunity to teach. In other words, quality time is lost, never to be regained.

Pastor Maynard provided some remedies to running on empty that if followed will fill us with the Holy Spirit. Next issue, we will discuss how these remedies relate to your institution. Stay tuned!