‘Greatest fraud’: Elon Musk says thousands and thousands listed in social safety database are over 100 years previous

US division of presidency effectivity head Elon Musk on Monday claimed to find “the most important fraud in historical past” after he discovered over 20 million people listed within the Social Safety database as centenarians.
In a social media put up on X, Musk shared a chart exhibiting age distribution from zero to 369 years and famous the variety of ‘eligible’ social safety numbers exceeded the US inhabitants.
“In line with the Social Safety database, these are the numbers of individuals in every age bucket with the dying subject set to FALSE!” Musk mentioned.
In line with a report by the New York Submit, the revelation was beforehand documented by the Social Safety Administration’s (SSA) oversight physique. A July 2023 audit recognized 18.9 million folks listed as centenarians within the database, regardless of solely 86,000 precise centenarians residing within the US in keeping with Census information.
A earlier March 2015 audit additionally discovered 6.5 million people over 112 years previous with Social Safety numbers however no dying data, although solely 35 folks globally had reached that age.
Each audits confirmed that nearly none obtained Social Safety funds, regardless of data exhibiting people born in 1886 and 1893 as residing. Roughly 18.4 million hadn’t obtained advantages or reported revenue for 50 years, suggesting they had been deceased.
The report attributes this to historic limitations: “We imagine it possible SSA didn’t obtain or document many of the 18.9 million people’ dying data primarily as a result of the people died many years in the past—earlier than using digital dying reporting.”
Of these listed, 44,000 had been receiving advantages, together with 13 over age 112. Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez, the world’s oldest man at 112 – a musician, coal miner and gin rummy fanatic from western New York – handed away shortly after the primary audit commenced.
The audits revealed 531 million distinctive Social Safety numbers in circulation, with potential id fraud instances. The 2015 audit recognized roughly $3.1 billion in earnings reported utilizing incorrect Social Safety numbers.
Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute famous many numbers belonged to “unlawful immigrants paying in, not fraudulent recipients taking out.” He advised The Submit that migrants had been “stealing identities of people who find themselves deceased however not marked within the Social Safety system.”
Specialists imagine Musk accessed the “Numident” listing, containing all numbers issued since 1936. A former SSA worker defined some people have a number of numbers, both resulting from fraud or as victims requiring new numbers.
Different federal companies have confronted comparable points. The Pension Profit Assure Company made $127 million in overpayments to a Teamsters’ pension fund with practically 3,500 deceased members throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, later settling with the DOJ.
Ida Might Fuller, born in 1874, grew to become the primary US Social Safety recipient in January 1940, accumulating $22,888.92 till her dying in 1975.
SSA representatives have not but responded to remark requests.