"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

That line, from the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke," has been repeated frequently since The Captain explained "the situation" to Paul Newman (Luke) and his fellow inmates. And it certainly applies to the Social Security Administration and its intended audience.

That's the primary takeaway from a recent survey mounted by Nationwide and executed by the Harris Group. What the insurer and the pollster found was an appalling lack of knowledge about Social Security by the very Americans who stand to benefit from it. But the survey suggests the fault lies not with the agency, but with the taxpayers themselves.

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Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.