The Social Security Administration (SSA) has refuted claims made by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump that millions of dead people are receiving Social Security benefits. Experts say Musk and Trump have misinterpreted SSA data. Musk recently claimed to have found records showing people as old as 150 years still receiving benefits.
Trump echoed these claims, questioning the integrity of the Social Security system. However, Social Security policy experts and economists clarify that Musk and Trump are misreading SSA data. The SSA has multiple databases, including the Numident system, which lists every person ever assigned a Social Security number.
Some records in this system lack death dates because they predate electronic records. These records do not indicate fraudulent payments. When they’re throwing around numbers like tens of millions of dead people are getting Social Security, well, there are only 67 million total.
What are they talking about? Half the people are actually dead?
Social Security experts clarify fraud claims
The numbers are so ridiculous. It’s not true,” stated Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The SSA does make improper payments, but they are minimal.
According to a July 2024 inspector general’s report, the SSA made $71.8 billion in improper payments from 2015 to 2022, about 1% of the agency’s annual $1 trillion in benefits. The Numident data also shows that nearly 19 million people were born before 1920 without recorded death information. The SSA acknowledges this flaw but says fixing it would be too costly.
To prevent fraud, SSA policies include automatically stopping benefits for those over 115 and periodically checking that older beneficiaries are still using Medicare. Romig noted Musk’s history of spreading misinformation, such as a recent false claim about USAID sending condoms to Gaza and Hamas, which was a logistic error involving Mozambique. Musk admitted, “Nobody’s going to bat a thousand. We will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
Experts maintain Musk’s interpretation of the data is incorrect, and the discrepancies do not indicate widespread Social Security fraud.
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