WASHINGTON — The newly appointed leader of the Social Security Administration clarified on Wednesday that deceased individuals, particularly centenarians, are “not necessarily receiving benefits.” This statement counters recently made claims suggesting that millions of individuals aged 100 and older are inappropriately collecting funds from the agency.
Lee Dudek, who has recently stepped into the role as acting commissioner of the SSA under President Donald Trump, addressed this misinformation after both Trump and business mogul Elon Musk made dubious assertions via social media and public comments. They claimed individuals aged over 100 to even as much as 300 years were improperly receiving benefits from the Social Security system.
While it is accurate that improper payments have occurred, including benefits mistakenly allocated to deceased individuals, the figures suggested by Trump and Musk grossly exaggerate the realities reported by Social Security.
During a press briefing in Florida on Tuesday, Trump asserted that “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” who are collecting Social Security benefits. He characterized the situation as one of blatant fraud or incompetence. He further exaggerated by stating that some records indicated a participant in the system was listed as 360 years old.
Musk, whose Government Efficiency department aims to tackle fraud and misuse within federal programs, also made provocative statements online, suggesting that if false records persisted, they could imply the existence of “vampires” collecting Social Security. He emphasized that having many individuals marked as “ALIVE” in Social Security records, despite being deceased, represents a significant issue.
The assertion that there are tens of millions of individuals over the age of 100 receiving benefits, however, is incorrect. A contributing factor to the confusion is the SSA’s software, which was built using the COBOL programming language that lacks a proper date type. This could generate inaccurate entries with birthdates defaulting to more than 150 years ago when that information is incomplete.
Reports issued by the SSA’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 indicated that the agency still lacks an updated system to accurately annotate and handle death data within its records. Approximately 18.9 million Social Security numbers belong to individuals born in 1920 or earlier, but they were not correctly denoted as deceased. Nonetheless, this situation does not imply that those individuals were receiving benefits.
Updating this database appears to have been deemed too costly by the agency, with projections running over $9 million. A July 2023 report indicated that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” Additionally, as of September 2015, payments were automatically ceased for anyone over the age of 115.
Dudek, who took the position following the resignation of Michelle King, reiterated the agency’s commitment to transparency in a statement. He acknowledged that the confusion stemmed from the database’s default settings. He specified that the reported figures included individuals within their records who lacked a date of death attached. “These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” he clarified.
How significant is the issue of Social Security fraud? According to a July 2024 report from the SSA’s inspector general, the agency disbursed nearly $8.6 trillion in benefits from fiscal year 2015 to 2022, with improper payments amounting to $71.8 billion, which constitutes less than 1% of the total. The majority of erroneous payments were overpayments to living individuals.
In a separate issue, the U.S. Treasury recently recouped over $31 million in various federal payments incorrectly disbursed to deceased individuals as part of a pilot program initiated after Congress granted the Treasury temporary access to the SSA’s “Full Death Master File.” This highly detailed database contains over 142 million records dating back to 1899. Projections indicate that more than $215 million could be recovered during this access period, which spans three years and ends in December 2026.
Concerns regarding misinformation surrounding Social Security payments were commented on by Chuck Blahous, a strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He acknowledged Musk’s efforts to eradicate improper payments but noted that Social Security would rank low in terms of federal agency error rates. He emphasized that areas like Medicaid possess far greater challenges in this regard.
Sita Nataraj Slavov, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, warned that the inflammatory claims by Musk and Trump could mislead the public into believing that the solutions to government financial issues are straightforward when, in fact, they involve complex trade-offs, including potential tax increases or reductions in benefits.
In response to the critiques, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt referenced the SSA’s inspector general’s report, noting past investigations that documented at least $71.8 billion in improper payments. She stated that the SSA is actively working to unearth additional waste, fraud, and mismanagement as part of a comprehensive government initiative aimed at protecting American taxpayers.
