Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Money, Health
The US Social Security Administration has spoken out after the president claimed money was being dished out to impossibly elderly citizens.
Donald Trump told Congress on Tuesday (March 4) that the administration has been forking out funds on a mass scale of waste to millions of people over 140 years of age.
The 78-year-old President said: "We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors."
He went on to allege that millions of unfeasibly old residents were collecting checks based on Social Security Administration (SSA) data.
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This includes:
Trump said 130,000 citizens older than 160 years old and several hundreds of people older than 220 were also pocketing social security benefits - and even one singular person 'listed at 360 years of age.'
However, according to a factcheck by NBC News, while the SSA database does apparently have issues in its dataset with real records on the impossibly ancient, it doesn't mean they are getting paid.
The SSA addressed the concerns of its aged records this week, writing in a statement: "The data reported in the media represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record."
It added: "While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records."
Since the issue was highlighted by the POTUS, SSA claims it has made 'significant progress in identifying and correcting beneficiary records of people 100 years old or older.'
The news comes as inspectors have long identified its record-keeping as an issue, but the SSA has argued updating outdated records is costly and unnecessary, according to the news outlet.
Part of the issue comes from its COBOL programming language, reports NewsNation, which doesn't use a reliable format for dates which means entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a random reference point more than 150 years ago.
Inspection reports in March 2023 and July 2024 further uncovered the agency had failed to set up a system that would accurately log death dates.
Instead of forking out the estimated $9 million to amend the database, the agency automatically stops payments to anyone over the age of 115.
The SSA reiterated in its statement that it accumulates death data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, based on whether a citizen has accessed the healthcare service in the past three or more years, and 'prioritize[s] cases of individuals age 90 or older' where the agency 'attempts to conduct an interview with these individuals to verify they are still alive'.
"If the agency identifies someone is deceased, it immediately stops payment and reports any suspicions of fraud to SSA’s Office of the Inspector General," it concluded.
Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, also said: "I thank President Trump for highlighting these inconsistencies during his speech last night to a joint session of Congress.
"We are steadfast in our commitment to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in our programs, and actively correcting the inconsistencies with missing dates of death.”
