Trust but verify !

For those of you who don't know, I've spent many years in the actuarial consulting and retirement planning business. One of the biggest problems faced by many of my clients is the hiring of illegal aliens. Some of these workers spend many years with a company and accumulate substantial retirement benefits only to "disappear" without a trace. Some employers I’ve talk to about this think the employees don’t even care about the retirement benefits accumulated; they’re content to just draw a weekly salary. The accumulated benefits remain in the plan until such time as the person is located or the plan itself is terminated with "lost" benefits then being turned over to the feds. Believe it or not, there are millions of dollars in such benefits just waiting to be paid out. Simply requesting a Social Security number isn’t a solution either; it’s relatively easy for a motivated individual to use a bogus number.

Well, there is a way to help employers avert such a dilemma. A pilot program called E-Verify is being run by the by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS, E-Verify will “compare an employee’s Form I-9 information with over 444 million records in the SSA database, and more than 60 million records in Department of Homeland Security immigration databases.”  

If more companies started using this tool they could better screen potential workers and avoid making contributions on their behalf – monies that ultimately end up sitting in the fed’s coffers. Not to mention that all those funds could be spent on salaries, health benefits, etc. for employees who are here legally. I’m just surprised that this type of system hasn’t already been in force; after all we’ve got the technology in place.