Associated Press Headline from 2/19/2025:
New Social Security chief contradicts claims that millions of dead people are getting payouts
apnews.com/article/social-security-doge-musk-trump-improper-payments-57f9e374e77e7a24fdff3afa294aa7fe
Excerpts from the article linked above:
Lee Dudek, the new acting SSA commissioner who was placed in the role by President Donald Trump, gave the clarification after Trump and billionaire Elon Musk falsely claimed on social media and in news briefings that people who are 100, 200 and even 300 years old are improperly and routinely getting benefits.
So are tens of millions of people over 100 years old receiving benefits?
No.
Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. The news organization WIRED first reported on the use of COBOL programming language at the Social Security Administration.
Reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits.
The agency decided not to update the database because the cost would run upward of $9 million.
A July 2023 Social Security OIG report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” As of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.