New Social Safety chief refutes claims of deceased folks over 100 years previous getting checks
People who find themselves listed as over 100 years previous within the Social Safety system are “not essentially receiving advantages,” the brand new head of the company stated Wednesday, contradicting claims that tens of hundreds of thousands of useless folks over that age are receiving checks.
As an alternative, these people “are folks in our data with a Social Safety quantity who would not have a date of loss of life related to their file,” stated Lee Dudek, the brand new appearing Social Safety Administration commissioner who was positioned within the function by President Trump, within the Feb. 19 assertion.
The clarification comes after Mr. Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk claimed on social media and in press briefings that people who find themselves 100, 200 and even 300 years previous are improperly and routinely getting advantages.
As a result of Social Safety data should not public, it isn’t attainable to independently confirm Musk’s declare. Nevertheless, the Social Safety Administration robotically stops funds to people who find themselves older than 115 years previous, an company rule that has been in impact since September 2015.
Musk, whose Division of Authorities Effectivity is in search of to root out fraud, waste and abuse, issued a slew of posts on his social media platform X on Monday evening, together with: “Possibly Twilight is actual and there are a number of vampires amassing Social Safety.”
To make sure, there are cases of overpayments and fraud inside the Social Safety system. A July 2024 report from Social Safety’s inspector basic said that from fiscal years 2015 via 2022, the company paid out nearly $8.6 trillion in advantages, together with $71.8 billion — or lower than 1% — in improper funds. Many of the misguided funds had been overpayments to dwelling folks.
Social Safety and COBOL
A part of the confusion comes from Social Safety’s software program system based mostly on the COBOL programming language, which has a scarcity of date kind. Which means some entries with lacking or incomplete start dates will default to a reference level of greater than 150 years in the past.
The information group WIRED first reported on the company’s use of COBOL, a programming language which is greater than 60 years previous.
Moreover, a collection of studies from the Social Safety Administration’s inspector basic in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the company has not established a brand new system to correctly annotate loss of life info in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Safety numbers of individuals born in 1920 or earlier however weren’t marked as deceased. This doesn’t imply, nonetheless, that these people had been receiving advantages.
The company determined to not replace the database due to the price to take action, which might run upward of $9 million.
A July 2023 Social Safety OIG report states that “nearly not one of the numberholders mentioned within the report at present obtain SSA funds.”
DOGE on the Social Safety Administration
Dudek, who was named appearing chief of the Social Safety Administration after the resignation of Michelle King, reiterated the company’s dedication to transparency. The final strains of the assertion acknowledged current reporting about folks older than 100 receiving advantages from the company.
Within the assertion, Dudek added that the company’s precedence continues to be “paying beneficiaries the correct amount on the proper time, and offering different essential companies folks depend on from us.”
He famous that DOGE personnel “CANNOT make adjustments to company techniques, profit funds, or different info. They solely have READ entry.”
“I’m assured that with DOGE’s assist and the dedication of our government crew and workforce, that Social Safety will proceed to ship for the American folks,” Dudek stated.
Treasury clawbacks
In early January, the U.S. Treasury clawed again greater than $31 million in quite a lot of federal funds— not simply Social Safety funds— that improperly went to useless folks, a restoration that former Treasury official David Lebryk stated was “simply the tip of the iceberg.”
The cash was reclaimed as a part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave the Division of Treasury momentary entry to the Social Safety Administration’s “Full Dying Grasp File” for 3 years as a part of the omnibus appropriations invoice in 2021. The SSA maintains probably the most full federal database of people who’ve died, and the file incorporates greater than 142 million data, which return to 1899, in accordance with the Treasury.
Treasury estimated in January that it will recuperate greater than $215 million throughout its three-year entry interval, which runs from December 2023 via 2026.
Chuck Blahous, a senior analysis strategist on the Mercatus Middle at George Mason College, stated, “Two cheers for Elon Musk if he can root out and put a cease to improper funds.”
However to choose the locations within the federal authorities the place error charges are excessive, “Social Safety could be close to the underside of the checklist, not close to the highest,” Blahous stated. “Medicaid improper fee charges are fairly substantial, and soared after the Medicaid enlargement of the ACA.”
“By all means — go after any improper funds which might be discovered, however let’s not fake that is the place the system’s greatest monetary issues are,” he stated.
Sita Nataraj Slavov, a professor of public coverage on the Schar College of Coverage and Authorities at George Mason College, stated the claims by Musk and Trump will make folks assume the options to the federal government’s monetary issues are less complicated than they seem.
“The actual concern is that this declare could mislead folks into pondering there’s a simple repair to Social Safety’s monetary issues — that we will one way or the other restore solvency with out making sacrifices via increased taxes or decrease advantages,” Slavov stated. “That is merely not true.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White Home spokesperson, referred again to the Social Safety’s inspector basic report.
“A earlier investigation revealed the SSA paid not less than $71.8 billion in improper funds,” she stated. “The Social Safety Administration is now working to search out much more waste, fraud, and abuse within the Administration’s whole-of-government effort to guard American taxpayers.”
