Both President Donald Trump and his co-president Elon Musk have sparked controversy regarding Social Security payments to people over 100 years of age. Both have claimed that tens of millions of people 100 years plus, some even 200 or 300 years old, are improperly receiving benefits. Nowadays, it is almost certain that any announcement these two make will be false. In this case, they both have significantly overstated and misrepresented the actual data from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
by Lee Dixon, OrlandoAdvocate.com
At a press briefing in Florida, President Trump said: “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” receiving Social Security benefits. He said the payments were “obviously fraudulent or incompetent,” and suggested that removing the recipients would strengthen the Social Security system.
Co-president Elon Musk, on his social media platform X, maintained there is a “HUGE problem” of tens of millions of people marked as alive when they are dead.
Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek responded by clarifying that the reported data includes individuals in SSA records with a Social Security number but no associated date of death. Just because they’re still in the system does not mean they are receiving benefits.
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 years 2015 through 2022, with $71.8 billion (less than 1%) being improper payments. Most of these errors were overpayments to living individuals.
In early January, the U.S. Treasury recovered over $31 million in various federal payments, including but not limited to Social Security, that were improperly sent to deceased individuals. This recovery was part of a five-month pilot program begun before Trump took office and enabled by temporary access to the SSA’s “Full Death Master File,” granted by Congress in 2021. The Treasury estimates it will recover more than $215 million during the three-year access period from December 2023 through 2026.
Tens of Millions of People Over 100 Years Old Receiving Benefits
Not true. The “confusion” stems partly from the SSA’s use of the COBOL programming language, which lacks a specific date type, causing some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates to default to a reference point over 150 years ago. Elon Trump, with his so-called army of young computer “wizzes,” should know COBOL has this date type problem. SSA’s inspector general reported in March 2023 and July 2024 that the agency had not updated its system to properly annotate death information, so that roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier had not been marked as deceased. Again, these individuals were not necessarily receiving benefits. Because the cost to update the system was estimated at over $9 million, the SSA decided at that time to forgo the update.
A July 2023 SSA OIG report confirms that “almost none of the number-holders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments,” and beginning back in September 2015, payments automatically stop for individuals over 115 years old. Apparently Trump-Musk didn’t bother to ask anyone familiar with the system about these possible payments.
White House Responds to Criticism
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended the administration’s stance by referencing the SSA’s inspector general report, which highlighted $71.8 billion in improper payments. As usual, she emphasized efforts to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government. She calls it protection of American taxpayers. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) has a different point of view, calling it
Trump-Musk “lining their pockets.”
So, while improper payments do occur within the Social Security system, the claims made by President Trump and Elon Musk significantly exaggerate the issue. Accurate data and proper context are crucial to understanding and addressing the real challenges facing that agency and the older Americans receiving Social Security payments.
- Lee Dixon
- Lee Dixon
- Lee Dixon
- Lee Dixon
