The Social Security Administration pumped $84,000,000 in benefits into the USVI economy during 1998, according to newly-released figures in Washington.
This represented a $6 million increase over the prior year.
The some 12,500 Social Security checks arriving in the islands each month are the best possible kind of money from the mainland — they are in no danger from a hurricane, the whims of the travel industry (or Congress), or territorial government financial crises.
Further the money goes directly to the recipients, with no opportunities for delays, scandals or governmental waste. (The overhead costs of the Social Security Administration (SSA) are minimal, which is as it should be for a seasoned government agency blessed with major economies of scale.)
Finally, the benefits keep up with inflation, and as a result, the total dollar volume for the USVI grows year after year.
About 8,800 of these monthly checks go to retired workers and their spouses, and to a few of their children; another 2,200 go to widows, widowers and surviving children of insured workers, and the rest, about 1,500, go to disabled workers, and to their spouses and children. Benefit levels vary; they are higher for those with higher earnings, but the formulae are tilted a bit, I think appropriately, to give a break to those with lower incomes.
The volume of benefits, and their steady rise — that's the cheerful side of the coin.
On the other side we find that the Virgin Islands checks are smaller, on average, than those in the rest of the U.S. (but not in the rest of the U.S. islands), and proportionately, there are fewer checks coming to the USVI than there are to American jurisdictions generally.
The average recipient of a Social Security check, nationally, in 1998 found a check worth $707 in his or her mailbox on (usually) the third of the month. The average recipient in the USVI got $562.
In the same year about 16.4% of the American population generally (including for the last few months, this writer) found the little brown envelope in the mail while only 10.6% of the Virgin Islands population had that experience. (More precisely, most of these checks are deposited directly in the recipients' bank accounts, a highly useful part of the SSA program.)
Are there good reasons why the USVI gets less than its apparent share of the checks, and smaller ones at that? And can the local government do something about it?
The answers are "yes" to the first question and "yes but slowly" to the second.
The checks are smaller primarily because the USVI's economy is not as sturdy as that of the nation as a whole, and the checks are less numerous primarily because the average age of the USVI population is lower than that of the rest of the nation. But there are other factors at work that the local government can influence, at least at the margins.
A stealthy reducer of the number of checks and their size is the underground economy, and observers suggest that this is probably more of a problem in the islands than on the Mainland; the efficient troops of the Internal Revenue Service, seldom seen in the USVI, are active on the Mainland to make sure that employers and employees both pay their social security taxes, which go by the acronym of FICA.
Workers who take cash, and avoid the FICA (and break the law), may think they are getting the better part of the deal, but only for the moment because social security benefits, in the later part of one's life, reflect the amount of contributions recorded over the entire working life of the would-be benefits recipient. I was surprised to discover recently, when I filed, that the SSA calculates retirement benefits on the best 35 earning years of one's life; if you don't work in each of those 35 years, that reduces your pension; if you skipped FICA payments on some work done even 35 years back, your pension is reduced. (I did not suffer from losing a year's earnings decades ago, when I was a Fulbright Scholar in New Zealand, only because I delayed filing till I was 70.) You can get a social security pension, at the right age, with only ten years of covered employment, but it is a small pension.
So what could the island government do to keep those Social Security payments increasing year after year? Here are two strategies:

1) fight the underground labor market now so that full benefits are available to island residents in the future, and

2) encourage more people with existing or potential social security benefits to collect them in the islands.

The first strategy is simply supportive of existing federal law, and can not be criticized except by lawbreakers, but it brings benefits slowly; the second is totally non-controversial, it can bring instant results, but the task — encouraging people to retire to a place where do not now live, is difficult. (In Florida, however, fully 21% of the population receives a social security check, as opposed to about 10-11% in the USVI; many of the recipients are not Floridians by birth, but are, instead, Floridians by migration.)
What can the USVI government do about the underground labor market? The most direct tactic would be simply to insist that all USVI government contractors pay their FICA taxes, audit those contractors regularly on this point, and then loudly terminate contracts with those found in non-compliance. Given the number of workers on the territorial payroll, there apparently is a large enough staff to conduct the audits.
The USVI government could also use its influence with the schools, the university and the Food Stamp program to carry a strong message to students and Food Stamp recipients — do not EVEN THINK about taking a cash job in the underground economy.
What can the USVI do to increase the number of Social Security recipients in the islands? Three elements suggest themselves:
A). To the best of my knowledge there is no ongoing USVI program designed to lure back, in their retirement years, people who were born in the islands, and then migrated to the Mainland for their working years. It would be better for the islands, and probably better for the individuals, if their social security checks were mailed to an address in the USVI rather than to a Brooklyn (for example) address.
How do you encourage the widely scattered members of the Virgin Islands diaspora to think about retiring to the USVI? It is a specialized public relations challenge, but there are many channels, in addition to the most obvious one — encouraging USVI residents to write to their own relatives on the subject, sending along government-prepared material on the subject. University and high school alumni lists (and associations) could be used, and so could the envelopes sent out every two years carrying absentee ballots. These mailings, by definition, are going to people who: 1) care about the USVI or they would not be voting, and 2) who are not currently in the USVI. Any mailings sent along with the absentee ballots would have to be scrupulously non-partisan in nature and presumably should not be signed by an elected official.
B). Another, and quite different public relations campaign, this to be conducted with the close cooperation of the private sector, could be aimed at older people who did not grow up in the USVI, who could be encouraged to retire here (just like all those folks from the Middle West now living in Florida.) Anything that could be said to this audience about an improved health care system for senior citizens would, of course, be very useful. Causing them to live in the islands would, in most cases, bring more in financial assets than just their social security checks.
C). A third approach, suggested in an earlier column, would be to encourage immediate retirement of USVI government workers with pending (but unused) social security benefits; this would provide the double benefit of bringing in additional money from the Mainland while reducing the government's payroll. An able-bodied person can retire as early as 62 under the curre
nt law.
In short, the flow of Social Security checks to the Virgin Islands is strong, and growing slowly. The local government, if it desires, can increase that rate of growth — all without seeking anything as difficult as an act of Congress.

Editor's note: David North, a former assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, is chairman of the Board of Tax Appeals in Arlington County, Virginia.

Rotary East will not meet this Wednesday, Dec. 29.
Happy new Year to all!

Monday night’s showers made the Lutheran Church of the Reformation’s first live nativity scene a "wet run," church member Alicia Boatwright said, but the youngsters are eager to come back again. The display is open to public viewing from 6 to 8 p.m. nightly through Thursday at the church, located on Weymouth-Rhymer Highway by Tutu Park Mall.
The manger scene features a "stable" of evergreen boughs and palm fronds with the kind of bare-bones furnishings the Holy Family might well have found for themselves on the first Christmas. The church youth and other members of the congregation are taking turns nightly portraying Mary and Joseph, shepherds, angels, wise men from the Orient and contemporary visitors. Christmas music and live animals beginning Tuesday add to the ambience.
The public can drive by the manger scene for a close-up look without tying up traffic. Motorists should go eastbound on the highway just past McDonald’s and the Chase Bank mall entrance, and turn left at the first entrance to the Reformation Church parking lot. After viewing the manger scene, drivers will proceed back onto the eastbound lane of the highway at the other end of the parking lot.
Some people wonder why the nativity scene is being set up "after Christmas." There are two reasons. The practical one is that the planners did not want to compete with the many pressures and demands on people’s time in the days immediately before Christmas Day — shopping, decorating, preparing foods, rehearsing for programs and the like. The religious reason is that the church’s celebration of Christmas does not "end" on December 25th; that’s when it begins. This is where the "twelve days of Christmas" comes from, running from December 25th through January 5th — with Three Kings Day on January 6th completing the cycle.
Now that the hustle and bustle of "pre-Christmas" is over, the youth of Reformation Lutheran Church invite the public to enjoy their depiction of the first Christmas, to reflect for a few moments on the true reason for the season. A freewill offering will be taken, with funds to go toward rebuilding the church structure destroyed by Hurricane Marilyn.
Community choral groups are invited to present sacred Christmas music at the manger scene any of the evenings. To schedule a time to take part, please call 775-1022 or 776-4812.

Now that all the wrapping has been thrown away and the bells have stopped ringing, this year's Christmas season turns out not to have been all it was cracked up to be. Coming in for a large part of the blame is the cruise ship industry, according to several downtown retailers.
Abe Tarapani, manager of Diamonds International, says he is hoping for an improvement after the first of the year, when the millennium jitters have worn off.
"Our season wasn't what we had expected, and it's largely because of the cruise ships," he said.
He explained that the ships are now featuring 10-day millennium cruises as opposed to the regular seven-day trips when the ships would make one stop per week.
"The 10-day cruises take stops away from St. Thomas," he said.
Echoing disappointment with the cruise ship visitors, Mike Pepper, director of stores for Cardow Jewelers, said their season was "less than expected."
"I think passengers aren't booking until after the first of the year, when the Y2K worries are over," he said, adding that many of the ships are only about half-full.
Priya Sukhani of Star Jewelers on Main Street said the season has been "pretty slow." Again she commented on the Y2K problem as influencing passenger travel, with fewer people traveling.
One store that expressed satisfaction with the Christmas sales was Little Switzerland's Main Street location inside A. H. Riise. "We started off slow, but it picked up nicely – it was brisk the last week," said Luisa Beers, store manager. She said the store did a good local business as well as tourist sales.
On the other end of the island, Corinne Van Renssalaer of Color of Joy at American Yacht Harbor at Red Hook expressed disappointment over the season.
"I was just looking at last year's figures, and our sales are down a good 20 percent," she said. She added that "the hotels are empty, so what can you expect?" Color of Joy sells original art and gifts, popular among the nearby hotel guests.
Managers of local attractions also had some complaints about Christmas spending.
Achielle Barbel, sales manager for Atlantis Submarine Inc., said, "Our sales are 20 to 30 percent down from what we had expected, and it's because of the cheapie cruises." He said cruise ship passengers who are taking discounted trips won't spend money on a submarine trip, which would be considered a high-end expense, in comparison, say, to the three-for-$10 T-shirts. He did say, however, that passenger traffic on Christmas day was right on target, as well as on Dec. 26.
The venerable L & C Milliner Department Store didn't fare well this holiday season, but this has not been isolated to the season alone. "We are trying to survive," said Leslie Milliner, store owner. He pointed out that competition is tough, with the offshore businesses here on island taking the lion's share of the business.
"It seems they use us as an afterthought," Milliner said
As if proving Milliner's point, Steve Todd, Lockhart Garden Kmart manager, said the season has been "outstanding."
"We did 20 percent over last year," he said, exceeding the store's projections. He said the store does about 25 percent cruise ship business, catering to the passengers and the crews. Kmart offers a discount to crew members.
The store's seasonal success tends to back up the opinion that passengers on the cheaper cruises head to Kmart, not Diamonds International.
And apparently the mega-yachts weren't doing much local spending either, at least at Crown Bay Marina. Candace Groce of Marine Warehouse described Christmas spending as "not much busier than an average day."
Overall, even with the government's vendor payments and income tax refunds, it appears that the millennium bug biting the cruise ship passengers is also biting local merchants right where it hurts.

A 19-year-old St. John resident was found dead early Monday morning at the scene of a one-vehicle accident in the V.I. National Park on North Shore Road near the Caneel Bay overlook.
Police and Emergency Medical Services ambulance personnel responding to a 911 call found Brook Gallop, a resident of Upper Carolina, dead at the scene of the accident. He had been thrown from the vehicle, observers said.
Gallop apparently had been the only occupant of the Suzuki Sidekick jeep that police said had overturned.
Passersby first attempted to assist Gallop after coming upon the accident scene around 2:35 a.m., then called 911 to report the matter.
A police report said the victim's body was taken to the Myrah Keating Smith Clinic, where Gallop was pronounced dead by Dr. Elizabeth Barot at 4:15 a.m. Monday. According to the report, the cause of the accident remained under investigation Monday.

There are five concerts remaining this season on the St. John School of the Arts schedule after the Dec. 30 performance by guitarist Dennis Koster — and four of them will be elsewhere.
And an extra concert has just been added to the calendar — to make up for the cancellation of the Junior Mance Trio in November because of Hurricane Lenny. (The concert date was two days after Lenny, but because the artists were housed on St. Thomas and ferries were not running, there was no way for them to get to St. John to perform.)
At the beginning of the season, it was announced that classical pianist Awadagin Pratt would play in Nazareth Lutheran Church for his Jan. 27 appearance, for the compelling reason that the church has a new baby grand, whereas the school has none.
Now, the Westin Resort has offered to host the performances of the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band on Jan. 13, the Charlie Musselwhite Blues Band on Feb. 17 and the Cabaret Evening of George Gershwin Music by Mary Cleere Haran and Richard Rodney Bennett on March 16. All three will take place in the resort ballroom, with dance floor space part of the plans.
What this means for the School of the Arts, director Ruth "Sis" Frank explains, is that it can "sell up to 250 to 300 tickets as a fund raiser for the school," which is double the capacity of the school's own performance space.
For all three concerts in the Westin ballroom, the resort will offer two optional pre-performance dinners — a barbecue and a dining room dinner, Frank says.
"I called Corky Siegel and asked him, 'Hey, do you mind if we move you to the Westin?'" Frank relates. His reply: "I don't care where we play, just as long as we play on St. John."
She notes that Siegel (who's also the leader of Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues, which has made two V.I. tours in recent years) will be doing a special performance for Julius E. Sprauve School students at the School of the Arts on Jan. 13.
The new concert, set for Jan. 17, will be by jazz pianist Gary Dial, a performer, composer and educator who is in close contact with Mance and who just happens to own a time-share at the Westin that he is planning to use in the next few weeks.
Dial, who heads the jazz department at the New School of Social Research in New York, contacted Frank to ask if he could practice the piano at the School of the Arts while he on island. "I said, how would you like to give a concert?" she recalls. What she instantly had in mind was the opportunity to "make up for Junior Mance."
She explains: "We were not able to refund money for tickets to the Mance concert, because we had to pay the artists anyway. But for this concert, any season ticket holder and anyone who purchased tickets for the Mance concert will be able to come for free.
For others, tickets are $25 general admission, $15 for students. For reservations, call 779-4322 or 776-6777.

The St. John School of the Arts begins a new trimester Jan. 8 with classes seven days a week encompassing visual arts, dance forms, steelband, piano, jazzercise, quilting, tumbling and the Orff Schulwerk early childhood rhythm and music program.
Orff Schulwerk classes — which teach rhythm, notes, singing and movement utilizing xylophones and glockenspiels,– are being offered at the Julius E. Sprauve and Pine Peace Schools. And dance classes are being taught at the Sprauve and Guy Benjamin Schools.
Three of the adult evening courses — jazzercise, adult steelband and quilting — are offered to the public through the Beacon Schools of the V.I. program at the Sprauve School.
Here's the trimester schedule:
Art I — 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Mondays
Modern dance I — 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Tuesdays
Tap I — 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Wednesdays
Tumbling I — 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Thursdays
Art II — 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. Mondays
Modern dance II — 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. Tuesdays
Tap II — 4:15 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays
Tumbling II — 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. Thursdays
Adult steelband — 5 to 6:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays
Jazzercise — 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays
Quilting — 6 to 7:30 p.m. Mondays
Adult ballet — 6:45 to 8:15 p.m. Wednesdays
Adult tap — 7 to 8 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays
Adult dance — 7 to 8 p.m. Thursdays
Tango — 8 to 9 p.m. Mondays
Oil painting for teens and adults — 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturdays
Piano (scheduled private half-hour lessons) — 2:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays (at Nazareth Lutheran Church), 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays
At Sprauve School, dance classes are offered from 1 to 1:45 p.m. and from 1:45 to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays.
At Guy Benjamin, an after-school program is offered Mondays (dance) and Wednesdays.
The Orff classes are being offered on the following schedule:
Sprauve School — kindergarten 1 to 1:45 p.m. Mondays; first grade 1:45 to 2:30 p.m. Mondays; second grade 1 to 1:45 p.m. Wednesdays; 3rd grade 1:45 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesdays.
Pine Peace School — 8:30 to 11 a.m. at Pine Peace; 1 to 3 p.m. at the School of the Arts.
School of the Arts classes are $8 or $10 per lesson, except for piano, which is $21 for a half-hour lesson. There is no charge for courses offered through the school as part of the Beacon Schools program. For registration information, contact school director Ruth "Sis" Frank at 779- 4322 or 776-6777.

Jahkeela Elmes, age 14, was shot early Saturday morning while sitting in front of the USO on the waterfront.
According to a release from territorial Police Chief Jose Garcia, the Roy L. Schneider hospital notified police about the shooting victim at 5:51 a.m. Christmas morning.
Elmes told police he was sitting on a vehicle by the USO when he heard shots and realized he'd been hit by a bullet in the upper left arm.
The teen-ager told police he had no idea who shot him. He was treated and released from the hospital the same day.
Garcia said the Juvenile Bureau was investigating the incident. He gave no address for Elmes.

While the occupancy rate at St. Croix’s hotels is high for the upcoming millennium weekend, the presidents of St. Croix’s two hotel organizations aren’t optimistic about the next few months.
"I think most (hotels), in general, for the next week look real good," said Peter Ross, president of the St. Croix Hotel and Tourism Association and owner of the King’s Alley Hotel. "Beyond that it’s not real positive."
Ross said occupancy rates for the week bracketed by Christmas and the New Year are "a little better" than the average 90 percent for that time of year. The remainder of the season, however, is "abnormally" low, he said.
St. Croix Accommodations Council President Peter Locke, who also owns Chenay Bay Resort, concurred with Ross on the situation.
Locke said that while his resort wasn’t full during Christmas he’s booked up between Tuesday and the new year.
"But for January and February, who knows?" he said.
Both hoteliers cited two reasons for the slow holiday season.
The first is travelers’ worries about the millennium bug and the second is the V.I. government’s tourism advertising effort.
Ross said many potential travelers are opting to remain home for the new year fearing disruption caused by computer malfunctions due to the new century and the threat of terrorist acts. He said that once 2000 settles in there could be a resurgence in travel.
"A lot of it is hype," Ross said. "We’re hoping that after the first of the year, and with the government’s advertising, we’ll catch some of those vacationers."
The Department of Tourism recently spent $500,000 for a print ad campaign that will begin in January. The first ads will appear in the Jan. 3 edition of USA Today. Subsequent ads will be placed in People Magazine and Parade, a Sunday magazine newspaper insert that is read by more than 18 million people, according to Tourism.
While the advertising will help, Locke said it’s coming somewhat late into the season. Rather, he said, the government should have gotten the word out that the territory was open for business soon after Hurricane Lenny hit on Nov. 17.
"We wanted to do it (advertising) in December," Locke said.
"January is getting a little late."
Locke said that the members of the Accommodations Council own their respective properties and aren’t supported by a national or international chain. That makes the need for a stronger marketing campaign crucial, he said.
"They feel it," Locke said. "They don’t have the advertising budget and wholesalers. They are stretched thinly."

A house trailer at 63-13 Lindbergh Bay was destroyed by fire early Monday morning. No one was injured.
The trailer was owned by Hazely Jackson.
Police were called to the scene at 2:22 a.m., according to a report from territorial Police Chief Jose Garcia.
Garcia's report said the police made contact with a Capt. Costanzo of the Fire Services. It was not clear from the police report if the fire official was at the scene.
The cause of the fire was undetermined but it remains under investigation, according to Garcia.