Claim: Musk got the 150 yr old SS recipients figure from COBOL's default date of 1875

[AmberRobot]

he is not saying that some data entry person purposefully made the dead person alive so they could then apply for ss and steal money.

at least i dont think anyone but you thinks that. i could be wrong.

I guess we aren't communicating well if you think that I am claiming that a data entry person is resurrecting dead people to steal social security money. Sheesh.

It's ok that you are wrong. As Musk himself said, nobody will bat a thousand.

 

[deirdre]

No. I don't know anything about cobol or 1875 and I have seen no compelling evidence that COBOL dating is the issue here. I don't know why there would be listings of 150 year old people, as there are no people in this country over 115 years old. I look forward to hearing why they are there and if it is fraud.

well thats what you are responding to...if you hit the little arrow next to our names in the replies you can trace back the convo of what you are commenting on

 

[fizzBuzz]

I would argue he has a responsibility, perhaps even a legal one, to do so.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do believe he should be legally obligated to let us know.

Congress is charged by the Constitution with the "power of the purse" so it should be officially reported to them to rectify through legal means.

This is where arguments are currently being held and the courts will let us know. The Impoundment Control Act was passed in 1974 which basically says Congress holds budget and spending authority which cannot be overruled by the Executive. However, other Acts say the opposite lol our government...

An impoundment is an executive refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress. Although U.S. presidents historically impounded funds with some regularity, Congress curtailed this practice by statute after President Nixon abused it. As amended over time, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA) now limits the executive branch's authority to decline to spend or commit to spending funds that Congress has appropriated.
At the same time, other statutes do the opposite: While the ICA forbids officials from refusing to use funds in an appropriation, other laws bar them from spending, or even committing to spend, money without one. In particular, the Anti-Deficiency Act, a law enacted in the 19th century and strengthened over time, makes such action unlawful—and sometimes even criminal.
Current law thus often catches the executive branch in a vise: Presidents can neither spend money without an appropriation nor refuse to spend funds once Congress has provided them. From both directions, Congress has reinforced its "power of the purse"—its authority to control the use of federal money.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/a-primer-on-the-impoundment-control-act

 

[deirdre]

No I believe that he is implying that because there are no 150 year old people alive that could legitimately be collecting social security then these entries must be fraudulent. Is that not what he is implying?

It's ok that you are wrong.

youre the one who said entries. but i accept you didnt mean that.

 

[AmberRobot]

youre the one who said entries. but i accept you didnt mean that.

Ok. I see the confusion. I should have said that the entries are implying fraud, rather than the entries themselves are fraudulent.

If there are real entries that people who are 150 years old are receiving social security benefits (and presumably cashing in?) then that is potential evidence of fraud, but not proof. It is possible there is a non-fraudulent explanation for this, and there should be due diligence on this prior to implying fraud. I agree the information should be given to the appropriate authorities to look into this.

But I would also say that the way Musk is presenting this to the public is not the appropriate way and is intended to manipulate public emotion and perception of the government. He is couching it all in "transparency" claims, but there are valid reasons to not submit unfinished work for public consumption.

 

[deirdre]

Fair enough. I look forward to hearing about this showing up on the FBI's desk to investigate.

or the inspector general. i'm ASSUMING the inspector general cant make arrests themselves, but maybe they can? so dont quote me on the fbi. i know bank fraud etc goes to the fbi.

Article:

The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, allows the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) to collect your information, which OIG may use to investigate alleged fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct related to SSA programs and operations. Providing the information is voluntary, but not providing all or part of the information may limit our ability to conduct a complete investigation. As law permits, we may use and share the information you submit, including with other Federal and local government agencies, and others, as outlined in the routine uses within System of Records Notices (SORN) OIG-001 and OIG-002, available at www.ssa.gov/privacy. When appropriate, the information you submit may also be provided to the SSA for use in computer matching programs to establish or verify eligibility for SSA programs and to recoup debts under these programs. All SSA SORNs are also available at www.ssa.gov/privacy .

Source: https://oig.ssa.gov/report/

 

[AmberRobot]

or the inspector general. i'm ASSUMING the inspector general cant make arrests themselves, but maybe they can? so dont quote me on the fbi. i know bank fraud etc goes to the fbi.

didn't Trump fire most of the inspectors general? Which ones are left?

 

[deirdre]

didn't Trump fire most of the inspectors general? Which ones are left?

couldnt resist your set up

Source: https://youtu.be/Byg8VZdKK88?t=276

 

[MonkeeSage]

In the tweet I quoted in post #15, Mr. Musk made it clear that he thought having an entry in the Master Beneficiary Record (MBR) with dead people not being marked as dead meant "a lot" of them were receiving benefits and joked about them being vampires.

According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!

Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security

Source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076

In the tweet @deirdre posted he re-enforces that.

Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as "ALIVE" when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem.

Source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891557463377490431

In post #15 I quoted people speculating about dependents still receiving benefits through dead relatives/spouses but that is irrelevant to these claims, which are focused on the fact that the records show dead people as being alive. That means the concern is people fraudulently collecting benefits for dead people (or vampires exist).

In post #18 I quoted from an OASI ruling showing benefits are automatically suspended then terminated for whereabouts unknown, and the SSA Program Operations Manual System and FY2017 Budget Justification showing they have an automated system in place to terminate benefits from people 115+ to help prevent this exact kind of fraud.

In September 2015, we released software for Phase 2, which reduces opportunities to commit fraud by resuming and redirecting benefits on suspended claims through automation for beneficiaries that do not have a date of death reported on the Master Beneficiary Record
(MBR) and there are no additional beneficiaries in non-terminated payment status on the MBR.

Source: https://www.ssa.gov/budget/assets/materials/2017/2017FCJ.pdf

In post #49 @TheCholla posted some actual numbers for people aged 99+ and 105+

This report from 2023 talks about this, mention that 98% of the registered people born in 1920 or earlier (105+) are not receiving SSA payments (footnote 7):
https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf

That makes for ~44,000 people receiving it (from which a good part aren't dead).

This table from December 2024 also lists ~89,000 SSA beneficiaries of age 99+:
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/benefits/ra_age202412.html

I'm not going to speculate on his motives, but Mr. Musk made an extremely inaccurate claim, apparently based on assuming the fact that dead people who are marked as alive in the MBR means other people are fraudulently receiving benefits for millions of them.

 

[FatPhil]

According to This Wikipedia page on "supercentenarians" the currently oldest living American is 114 years old. Does that substantiate the claim that nobody of age 150 could be collecting social security now?

GIven that Musk has said that they're "definitely dead", I'm not sure what you're trying to debunk.

 

[AmberRobot]

GIven that Musk has said that they're "definitely dead", I'm not sure what you're trying to debunk.

I agree. So he is basically asserting that because no one is that old then it must be fraudulent but he has provided no actual evidence of fraud. He is hoping that the assertion itself will sway the American people to assume fraud and thus validate his actions.

I have also read that the SS system does not give payments out to anyone listed older than 115, so even if there are listings with ages over that they won't be receiving payments and thus no money is being outlayed. Would the system has fraud prevention built in but he didn't mention that along with his assertion, possibly on purpose.

 

[Landru]

I have also read that the SS system does not give payments out to anyone listed older than 115, so even if there are listings with ages over that they won't be receiving payments and thus no money is being outlayed.

Can you provide evidence please?

 

[AmberRobot]

Can you provide evidence please?

According to this site:

https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578

(Emphasis mine)

A. Overview of the age 115 or older termination process

Effective September 2015, the Social Security Administration (SSA) implemented an automated process in which the Regular Transcript Attainment and Selection Pass (RETAP) application selects records for which the Title II beneficiary is:

• •
  Age 115 or older;
• •
  In any current continuous suspense for seven years or more; and
• •
  Entitled on a record where there are no other beneficiaries in a non-terminated status younger than the age of 115.

The Title II Redesign (T2R) system automatically selects and terminates entitlement to beneficiaries meeting the criteria in this section on a monthly basis using Ledger Account File (LAF) T9 and Reason for Suspension or Termination (RFST) of AGETRM.

 

[MonkeeSage]

I have also read that the SS system does not give payments out to anyone listed older than 115, so even if there are listings with ages over that they won't be receiving payments and thus no money is being outlayed.

Age 115 is not a hard cut-off for receiving benefits, if anyone actually did live long. There's just an automated process that runs that will look for people 115+ that have not been receiving benefits for seven years and have no dependents still receiving benefits, and it terminate their benefits. This prevents people from going and using the automated system to reactivate the dead folk's benefits and adding new dependents, etc, which could have previously been possible because they were not marked dead in the db.

 

[AmberRobot]

Age 115 is not a hard cut-off for receiving benefits, if anyone actually did live long. There's just an automated process that runs that will look for people 115+ that have not been receiving benefits for seven years and have no dependents still receiving benefits, and it terminate their benefits. This prevents people from going and using the automated system to reactivate the dead folk's benefits and adding new dependents, etc, which could have previously been possible because they were not marked dead in the db.

But does it dispel the idea that there are checks going out to people whose database entries indicate they are 150 years old and that these checks are being cashed, thus costing the taxpayer money?

I would argue that Musk at least implied, if not outright stated, this and that is fraud that his organization has rooted out.

I am interested in that particular claim/implied accusation.

 

[MonkeeSage]

But does it dispel the idea that there are checks going out to people whose database entries indicate they are 150 years old and that these checks are being cashed, thus costing the taxpayer money?

I would argue that Musk at least implied, if not outright stated, this and that is fraud that his organization has rooted out.

I am interested in that particular claim/implied accusation.

Agree. I don't think there are many if any 150 year old people still receiving benefits (or people receiving it for them). Based on the numbers @TheCholla posted there are only ~44,000 105+ year olds still on the the doll.

 

[AmberRobot]

ok she might have got that number from elon as he posted this earlier that day. (i guess he assumes everyone older than 100 is dead. but "tens" is really 20. looking at his chart) and she misspoke about what elon was claiming.


Source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891557463377490431

By the way, what is the table actually of? It surely isn't a list of social security recipients. Two reasons: it includes babies, children and other ages not associated with those eligible to receive social security benefits. It also looks to sum to a number larger than the current population of the country.

Can anyone clear this up or provide a source for this table he is presenting in the context of "millions of people" receiving SS benefits who shouldn't?

 

[deirdre]

By the way, what is the table actually of? It surely isn't a list of social security recipients. Two reasons: it includes babies, children and other ages not associated with those eligible to receive social security benefits. It also looks to sum to a number larger than the current population of the country.

Can anyone clear this up or provide a source for this table he is presenting in the context of "millions of people" receiving SS benefits who shouldn't?

yea through age 99 there are 377,626,689 so...like 42 million off. hhmmm..

i checked, illegal immigrants and greencard holders etc are counted in population numbers.
but if there are approx 20 million people over 100 still alive..chances are there are alot of dead people in the lower ages too.

 

[Gary C]

Without knowing which databases were queried, and the search parameters used, the table does not support any conclusions regarding fraud, waste, or abuse, including Musk's.
1. Which data sets were accessed?
2. What queries were run?
3. How were the results aggregated?

 

[MonkeeSage]

By the way, what is the table actually of? It surely isn't a list of social security recipients. Two reasons: it includes babies, children and other ages not associated with those eligible to receive social security benefits. It also looks to sum to a number larger than the current population of the country.

I think everyone born gets enrolled in the MBR. I am not 100% on that maybe someone who knows more can correct me if that is wrong.