Y2K is technobabble for the Year Two-Thousand. Y means year, 2 means two, and K means thousand. Y2K refers to a problem that some people think is going to bring chaos and disorder when our computers roll over from 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1999 to 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2000. The reason for the concern is that prior to the mid 80's the year field on the system date of computers was programmed with only two variable characters instead of four the first two characters were programmed as a constant "19". In other words the year field of the system date on the older computers was entered in the form YY instead of the form YYYY. That means that on the older computers the year 1981 would be entered as 81 where on newer computers the year 1981 would be entered 1981 with all four numbers for the date being variables. The problem is that on the older computers when the date rolls over to the year 2000 it will roll over to 00 and with the first characters being fixed at 19 the computer will think it is the year 1900 and not the year 2000. The reason that these earlier computers were programmed this way is twofold. First, memory was very limited and the extra code needed to make a four variable year would take too much memory. Second, most programmers of the day did not foresee their software or firmware being used into the year 2000. Y2K compliance is not limited to the computer hardware alone. Much of the software that has been written to run on the computers is not Y2K compliant. In other words many programs only use only two characters for the year.

Many people have a lot of questions about this problem. How does this effect me? Will my home computer crash? Should I take all of my money out of the bank before 2000? What about my credit cards? How is this going to effect the world economy? Will I get my social security check or income tax refund? Is it true that the air traffic control computers could all crash? Should I travel on 1,1,2000? Will the military shut down and not be able to defend us? Let me attempt to answer these questions for you.

There are many people predicting gloom, doom and the end of life as we know it as a result of Y2K. Most of these people are either misinformed or have something to gain by making the Y2K problem seem bigger than it is. There are people making a lot of money Y2K proofing computers and a lot of it is totally unnecessary. Many of the computers and programs have long since been upgraded. Most of us should not be directly effected by the millennium bug.

All of the new home computers are Y2K compliant. If you have an old home computer you could have some problems but your computer won't crash. In most of the programs that are used on these older computers the date isn't that important anyway. With computer prices dropping so low more and more people can now afford to purchase a modern computer for their home. A new high speed Pentium class computer with all of the extras is under $1000 now and getting cheaper almost daily. If you want to find out if your home computer is Y2K compliant just try entering the year 2000 as your system date and see if it works. If you are running any version of windows on your computer then your computer is probably Y2K compliant. You may have some software on your home computer that is not Y2K compliant, but in most cases it doesn't matter.

The banks have been aware of this problem for a long time, but since they upgrade their computers and software frequently it is pretty much a non-issue. The same is true for the credit card companies. There has been a lot of talk about people getting turned down on their credit cards after the new year if their card expires in 2000 because the computer would think it expired in 1900. I am sure that all of the credit card companies and banks are already Y2K compliant, but if you have any concerns contact your credit card company or bank and ask them. I would not suggest taking your money out of your bank or canceling your credit cards. The one thing that will cause a problem with the economy is if people panic and take their money out of the banks. Since many other countries do not have the computer resources that the United States has, the biggest banking problem may be the electronic transfer of funds with foreign banks. If you have money in foreign banks it might be a good idea to put that money in a bank in the United States. The thing that could cause a collapse of the economy is not the Y2K bug but fear of the Y2K bug.

So long as people keep a level head, the year 2000 in and of itself should not cause a catastrophic adverse change in the world economy.

The Financial Management Service (FMS) of the Department of Treasury states:

"Each fiscal year, FMS issues over 850 million payments, with a dollar value of more than $1 trillion. We issue these payments on behalf of civilian agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Internal Revenue Service. Our payment services touch the lives of over 100 million people, and literally tens of millions of Americans depend on FMS systems to meet lifeline needs every month. FMS also provides debt collection services and manages the processing of roughly $1.4 trillion in Federal revenues, which include corporate and individual income taxes, customs duties, and Federal fines. And, FMS maintains the central accounting and reporting systems that track the government's monetary assets and liabilities, 7,500 separate Congressionally enacted accounts in all. Making sure our systems are year 2000 compliant is absolutely essential to our operations and the integrity of our systems for paying, collecting and accounting for money government wide. Obviously, all Federal agencies are counting on FMS to ready its systems in order to meet the basic financial needs of our constituents and the Federal government as a whole.

In terms of problem areas, FMS is not as far along in completing its Y2K work as we would like on our GOALS system--the system that edits and transmits intergovernmental accounting data. FMS is planning to replace the existing GOALS system to provide new and enhanced capabilities, however, development of all modules of the replacement system will not be complete prior to the year 2000. Consequently, we must renovate the existing applications to ensure that we have a GOALS system which will be year 2000 compliant after the turn of the century. This work is now underway. We had a late start in fixing the year 2000 problem because we had hoped to finish development of the GOALS II replacement system in time to avoid the need to renovate the existing system. In spite of the late start, we are taking steps to speed up the process. Our objective is to first renovate GOALS applications that are most critical to the government and those that have implementation dates for the redesigned GOALS II system that extend well into 1999. We are confident that we will complete all necessary work -- whether redesign of applications for the new GOALS II system or renovation and testing of existing GOALS applications -- to ensure compliance well before the end of 1999.

FMS is in relatively good shape in replacing the systems that are critical to issuing payments and collecting Federal revenues. For example, we have made critical progress with the Social Security Administration to ensure that monthly direct deposit and check payments will continue to go out accurately and on time after January 1, 2000. Social Security disbursements comprise almost two-thirds of our overall payment volume. Each month, FMS issues 33 million electronic funds transfer/direct deposit payments and 17 million check payments to Social Security recipients. The vast majority of these payments are issued by our Philadelphia Regional Financial Center. The FMS Philadelphia office and the Social Security Administration have been working closely together to coordinate the required program and format changes needed for Y2K compliance. All of the programming changes necessary to begin Y2K validation have been completed, and testing between Social Security and FMS began this month. Testing will be accomplished through all SSA and FMS processes, including the transmission of input from SSA to FMS, processing of that information in FMS's payment system, end to end testing from the payment system to FMS claims and accounting systems and the Federal Reserve, and transmission of output back to SSA. We will complete all of our testing by July, and implement Y2K compliant systems for both Title II (old age and survivors benefits) and Title XVI (supplemental security income) payments in August. Chairman Horn, Chairwoman Morella, and member of the Subcommittees, based on the fact that our testing will be completed at least 15 months before the year 2000 deadline, we can be confident that all Social Security payments will be issued correctly and on time by FMS when the next century begins."

From the Financial Management Service of the Department of Treasury statement it is clear that all of their systems will not be Y2K compliant in time. However, the systems that are critical to payments and collections will be and therefore life should go on as normal. In other words people who depend on payments from the government should get them as scheduled. Once again, remember fear of Y2K is far worse than Y2K.

Since many other countries use older computer systems than the United States I would think that it would be a good idea not to plan any international travel at the beginning of the year 2000. I would advise limiting travel to the continental United States during the first part of the next millennium. The fewer travelers there are the easier it will be to maintain control.

The people in positions of power in our government and in large corporations are not taking this issue lightly. They are spending billions of dollars to correct the problem.

Today's military relies heavily on computer controlled defense systems. There has been a lot of talk that the military will not be able to function. While it is true that not all systems will be Y2K compliant by the year 2000 the military is working hard to make all mission critical systems Y2K compliant. The other thing to remember is that the United States military has more modern equipment than most all other militaries in the world. This means that although we may have some Y2K failures on military equipment the powers that pose a particular threat to the United States will probably have even more failures and therefore we will still maintain the most powerful military in the world.

The governments and government agencies of the world are at the biggest risk of Y2K problems since in most cases they have some of the oldest computers and software. Some of the official web sites where you can get more information are: