Social Security Administration: Year 2000 Readiness Efforts Helped Ensure Century Rollover and Leap Year Success

Abstract

Federal agencies faced the potential for critical computer system failures at the turn of the century due to incorrect information processing relating to dates. This problem was rooted in how dates were recorded and processed in computer systems. Specifically, for the past several decades, systems typically used two digits to represent the year-such as "97" for 1997; in such a format, however, 2000 is indistinguishable from 1900. Hence, a beneficiary born in 1925 and therefore turning 75 in 2000 could be seen as being negative 25 years old (if "now" is 1900)-not even born yet-and therefore ineligible for benefits that the individual had already been receiving.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2000
Accession Number
ADA376133

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Application Software
  • Business Administration
  • Command Centers
  • Commerce
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Congress
  • Electronic Mail
  • Governments
  • Information Processing
  • Information Systems
  • Internet
  • Lessons Learned
  • Mainframe Computers
  • Money
  • Social Security

Readers

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