Social Security Addressing Aged Records
Reading Time: 1 MinuteLast Updated: March 5, 2025
The Social Security Administration (SSA) today shared its significant progress in identifying and correcting beneficiary records of people 100 years old or older. The data reported in the media represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record. While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records.
“I thank President Trump for highlighting these inconsistencies during his speech last night to a joint session of Congress,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “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.”
The agency follows long established program integrity initiatives that identify people who have a higher likelihood of being deceased due to their age or incomplete death reports. For example, SSA receives data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of individuals who have not used Medicare Part A or Part B for three or more years. SSA uses the data as an indicator to select and prioritize cases of individuals age 90 or older, who are currently in pay status and living in the United States, to determine continued eligibility for Social Security benefits. 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.
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Gregg Q.
How do you engender confidence in the rigor of SS, when it took an outsider from the private sector to discover these anomalies? If there was mid or lower level employees that knew this was a problem, but they were stonewalled by upper management because no one was holding their feet to the fire to fix it?
The public looks at these things as the tip of the iceberg and does it contribute to the longterm survival of the program itself? We need some movers and shakers in Federal service because the private sector is held to higher standards.
You must do better and sooner rather than later. Negative press must be countered by your positive accomplishments and report it the public.
Hermi
I don’t care about 100 yr old or older data. I just want to know if I will be receiving my monthly retirement benefits on time?
Therese F.
This was an helpful post although I knew this information, there may be a lot of people who don’t. Anyone who listens to the news knew this to be true as this was explained in response to Mr. Musk indicating that there were thousands of of people over 100 years of age receiving benefits. I was surprised to hear this during our Presidents speech last nite.
I think the federal workers in SS have done an amazing job for years. I sincerely hope that cuts do not undermine your passion and commitment to serving the aging population.
Kathy L.
This is the biggest hoax and anxiety inducing strategy a so called president of the United States has perpetrated on the American public. There is not rampant fraud. Funeral homes also report deaths. There are differences in computer system and language used in the system that lead to erroneous reports of fraud. The real president, Elon Musk, is running the show indiscriminately changing reports of savings on the “receipt wall” to make huge corrections over his initial reports. My employers and myself paid into this system on my behalf from 1965-2023. I deserve every cent. It is not a Ponzi scheme. You are a sham of an administrator because you do not stand up to Trump and Musk. Instead you perpetrate their lies.
Kimberly G.
Dear Acting Commissioner Dudek and all the employees of the Social Security Administration, I just want to write and thank you for your great efforts on behalf of the American people. I felt President Trump’s comments during his address to Congress were needlessly disparaging to the SSA. I know from experience that small things such as omitting or adding a zero during data entry can happen by accident when managing a database. I myself have worked on various small databases during my 35 year career in publicity and marketing. I want you to know that I am grateful for the SSA. Every experience I have had with the people of SSA has been professional, excellent and kind-hearted — especially during a period of time when my husband had stage IV lung cancer and then again after he passed away. The high caliber of the people working for the SSA are a very real and precious asset of the USA. I was so upset with President Trump for making those comments during his speech, along with those members of the House and Senate who laughed at his comments that I had to turn off the TV and stop watching the rest of his speech. I am sorry for what he said, and wish you all the best!
Danna A.
Why wasn’t this addressed before there were so many damaging falsehoods spread about it and therefore undermining confidence in the Agency?
Cathy L.
While it was unfortunate that these records were not corrected before now, I know millions of 150 people were not receiving benefit payments, and reject the notion that this represents fraud in the SSA system.
Beth S.
You know that’s a falsehood, yet we get these propaganda messages. We see what you’re doing and no one is buying it.
Jann S.
Thank you for informing us that there are safeguards in place that make sense. Perhaps we should have our computer systems flag people in the system that are over 95 to check and make sure they are still alive. Maybe everybody should check in once a year with social security to prove they are still alive and that they are receiving their benefits.
T. H.
I read your information and i think its a lame excuse at best. Compare the birthday and the present yr that shud tell u how old the person is. A dummy cud verify someone at 100.
That wud b an easy computer program and u as director shud hav done this yrs ago. U get no praise as u waited til u wer caught. Now legitimate recipients get cheated out of cost of living raise due to incompetence at every gov. Level.