WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is falsely claiming that tens of hundreds of thousands of lifeless individuals over 100 years previous are receiving Social Safety funds.
Over the previous few days, President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have stated on social media and in press briefings that people who find themselves 100, 200 and even 300 years previous are improperly getting advantages — a “HUGE downside,” Musk wrote, as his Division of Authorities Effectivity digs into federal companies to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
It’s true that improper funds have been made, together with some to lifeless individuals. However the numbers thrown out by Musk and the White Home are overstated and misrepresent Social Safety knowledge.
Listed below are the details:
On Tuesday, Trump stated at a press briefing in Florida that “we now have hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of individuals over 100 years previous” receiving Social Safety advantages. “They’re clearly fraudulent or incompetent,” Trump stated.
“Should you take all of these hundreds of thousands of individuals off Social Safety, rapidly we now have a really highly effective Social Safety with individuals which can be 80 and 70 and 90, however not 200 years previous,” he stated. He additionally stated that there’s one individual within the system listed as 360 years previous.
Late Monday, Musk posted a slew of posts on his social media platform X, together with: “Possibly Twilight is actual and there are numerous vampires accumulating Social Safety,” and “Having tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals marked in Social Safety as “ALIVE” when they’re undoubtedly lifeless is a HUGE downside. Clearly. A few of these individuals would have been alive earlier than America existed as a rustic. Take into consideration that for a second …”
A July 2024 report from Social Safety’s inspector normal states that from fiscal years 2015 by 2022, the company paid out virtually $8.6 trillion in advantages, together with $71.8 billion — or lower than 1% — in improper funds. A lot of the inaccurate funds have been overpayments to residing individuals.
As well as, 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 lifeless individuals, 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 short-term 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 information, which return to 1899, based on the Treasury.
Treasury estimated in January that it might recuperate greater than $215 million throughout its three-year entry interval, which runs from December 2023 by 2026.
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A part of the confusion comes from Social Safety’s software program system referred to as COBOL, which has an absence of date sort in its programming. Which means some entries with lacking or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference level of greater than 150 years in the past. The information group WIRED first reported on using COBOL programming language on the Social Safety Administration.
Moreover, a collection of stories from the Social Safety Administration’s inspector normal in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the company has not established a brand new system to correctly annotate dying 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 have been receiving advantages.
The company determined to not replace the database due to the associated fee to take action, which might run upward of $9 million.
A July 2023 Social Safety OIG report states that “virtually not one of the numberholders mentioned within the report at the moment obtain SSA funds.” And, as of September 2015, the company routinely stops funds to people who find themselves older than 115 years previous.
Chuck Blahous, a senior analysis strategist on the Mercatus Heart at George Mason College, stated, “Two cheers for Elon Musk if he can root out and put a cease to improper funds.”
However to select the locations within the federal authorities the place error charges are excessive, “Social Safety can be close to the underside of the listing, not close to the highest,” Blahous stated. “Medicaid improper cost charges are fairly substantial, and soared after the Medicaid growth of the ACA.”
“By all means — go after any improper funds which can be discovered, however let’s not fake that’s the place the system’s greatest monetary issues are,” he stated.
Sita Nataraj Slavov, a professor of public coverage on the Schar Faculty of Coverage and Authorities at George Mason College, stated the claims by Musk and Trump will make individuals suppose the options to the federal government’s monetary issues are easier than they seem.
“The true concern is that this declare could mislead individuals into considering 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 by greater 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 normal report.
“A earlier investigation revealed the SSA paid no less than $71.8 billion in improper funds,” she stated. “The Social Safety Administration is now working to seek out much more waste, fraud, and abuse within the Administration’s whole-of-government effort to guard American taxpayers.”
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