During his congressional address on Tuesday, Trump drew laughter by claiming that the Social Security Administration (SSA) had millions of beneficiaries who were over the age of 100.
“Three-point-five million people from age 140 to 149,” Trump said, claiming that “money is being paid to many of them.”
Perhaps even more shocking was Trump’s claim that “one person is listed at 360 years of age,” but are actual taxpayer dollars being wasted on impossibly-old recipients?
As it turns out, the databases may list those people, but that does not imply they are receiving benefits.
“The data reported in the media represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record,” the Social Security Administration (SSA) stated.
“While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records.”
Part of the confusion stems from Social Security’s software system, which is based on the COBOL programming language and does not use a specific date format.
This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will be set to a reference point from over 150 years ago.
Wired was the first to report on the Social Security Administration’s use of the COBOL programming language.
Furthermore, a series of reports issued by the SSA’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which contained approximately 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but not marked as deceased. This does not imply that these people were receiving benefits.
The agency decided not to update the database because the cost would be upwards of $9 million. As of September 2015, the agency automatically stopped making payments to people over the age of 115.
The SSA also says it checks data with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to see if recipients under the age of 115 or those with incomplete death reports have not used Medicare Part A or B in three years or more.
According to the SSA, those who are 90 years or older, are currently employed, and live in the United States are prioritized in determining whether they are still eligible for Social Security benefits.
The agency says it will contact those individuals to see if they are still alive, and if they are not, it will suspend payments and “report any suspicions of fraud to the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General.”
