GARY HABER

The staid Social Security check is going high tech.

In an effort to reduce the 700,000 lost or stolen checks the government reissues each year, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Management Service is rolling out a new program in which the 4 million Social Security recipients and people receiving SSI disability benefits who don't have bank accounts can opt to receive their payments in the form of a debit card.

That includes about 23,000 Delawareans who receive these government benefits and do not have bank accounts, officials said.

Like traditional bank-issued cards, the Direct Express Debit MasterCard can be used to pay bills, make purchases and get cash at ATM machines.

The cards will save people from having to pay check-cashing fees or toting around large sums of cash, officials say.

There is no sign-up fee and recipients do not need a bank account or credit check to enroll.

"It's safer and more convenient and more reliable," said Judy Tillman, commissioner for the Treasury Department's Financial Management Service.

Information about the program will begin appearing with recipients' checks in Delaware and 11 other mid-Atlantic and Northeast states and the District of Columbia starting later this month.

For benefit recipients with bank accounts, the Treasury Department has been trying to convert them from paper checks to direct deposit, Tillman said.

The debit card program was tested last year with about 3,000 people in Chicago and southern Illinois.

"The people using the card loved it so much, we wanted to make it a national program," Tillman said.

In April, the program was expanded to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas, where about 24,000 people enrolled.

Tillman said it is far cheaper to issue payments electronically, rather than mail out paper checks.

Each paper check costs 98 cents, while an electronic payment loaded on a debit card costs 10 cents, she said. The program could save as much as $142 million a year and save on the costs of reissuing lost or stolen checks, Tillman said.

"When we send those checks out in the mail every month, any number of things can happen to those checks," she said.

Kim Iapalucci, communications director for AARP in Delaware, says seniors should have the choice of how they receive their monthly Social Security payments, whether by check or electronically.

"We support options on how Social Security checks are received," she said.