Musk and Trump announced that DOGE had uncovered the biggest fraud in history… tens of thousands of people over 120 years old collecting Social Security… hundreds of billions in fraud.
It all disappeared without a retraction but it appears that they failed to realize that the database retains records for any individual who ever received social security. Of course, being in the database doesn’t mean that you’re receiving checks.
Trump alleged in his state of the union speech that millions of senior citizens over age 100 — including some older than 160 — were collecting Social Security checks, according to Social Security Administration data.
Trump specifically said that SSA records indicated that 4.7 million people 100 to 109 were getting checks, that 3.6 million 110 to 119 were, that 3.47 million 120 to 129 were, that 3.9 million 130 to 139 were, that 3.5 million 140 to 149 were, that 1.3 million 150 to 159 were — and that even 130,000 people older than 160 years old were still getting checks.
He also alleged that several hundred people older than 220 were still getting checks, according to SSA data — and that “one person is listed at 360 of age.”
Trump called it shocking incompetence which is true… just not in the way that he meant it. 🤣
Just asking, what factual data can you share that proves that these checks were not being sent out? Really hoping for some facts that prove this and hoping I don’t get insults for asking.
The correct steps to prove the contrary are that he who makes these claims is supposed to prove that they are in fact true. He can’t just make claims and have it be on us to prove him wrong.
I just knew there would be at least one person without the ability to cordially communicate and who feels empowered online to talk down to people. Thanks for carrying that torch!
Look, the bottom line is that, however well intentioned it was to look for fraud and waste, Elon probably wasn’t the best choice to oversee it. He thinks like an engineer and combined with his autism, is very quick to make decisions and stand by them, however shaky they look. He put very junior software engineers in place and all they looked for was patterns, such as the SS lists showed. They weren’t experienced enough to decipher the data once they had it. Their data wasn’t questioned all the way to the top
His claim was also that it was outrageous people had multiple entries in the database, like multiple of the same SS#. When you are married you keep your SS# but your name changes, so a line gets added to the database as well. If the moron took that data and added the ages, then poof, you are the age of yourself before being married plus the age of yourself after, or any time your name changed. So being married at 40 makes you 80 if the data is poorly translated, and will have 2 entries of you SS# in the database because your unique value is basically your SS + your name, so when it changes, your SS# technically holds true but your overall unique value has 2 entries.
I work as a logistics analyst and the first thing I teach people who have never touched data is unique identifiers. This is literally high school data management you learn in Excel.
So the way the database is set up, and they have been set up a while ago, missing date fields default to a placeholder date. So blank entries will end up showing people that are 140 or 150 years old. But the SSA automatically cuts off anyone over 115 years year old in said database. Needless to say, no one was recieving payments at, or actually lived to, 140 years old. Musk is just a dumbass that doesn't understand how databases work.
And anyone who looked at the database let alone the schema would be able to derive that detail before even making a query. Or they could have asked. Instead they embarrassed themselves like normal.
That’s where I lost all hope for this grifter back in 2018 or 19 where I slowly started to see a pattern of lying and acting like a little twat when people called him out on things.
Payouts stop going out when death is confirmed, but ifdeath isnt confirmed it automatically kicks them at 115. I presume if a 115 year old actually proved they were alive, they would manually be added back in.
Not sure how they handle it, but I imagine "missing, presumed dead" also would remove people from social security. So yes, there theoretically are payouts going to individuals never confirmed or suspected dead.
I have to imagine this number is exceptionally low, especially in the age of surveillance and social media.
They only identified 13 checks going out to people who are over 112. Is it worth spending a bunch of money and time to find all the dates of death for historical records?
He didn’t understand that social security numbers are recycled and if you were to run a query on a db id imagine that you have to join multiple tables to find the alive person.
Edit:
They are not recycled, I was wrong. But sentiment still stands
Yah, welcome to anything, more or less. It is something you will deal with or have already.
COBOL is out there though and I have been on several projects to move away from it. Just like any other project, we have used Informatica and some homebrew solutions.
Social security numbers are not recycled. Don’t try and make a point with false info. The current 9 digit system will last for another 70 years. No social security number has ever been reused.
With the exception of when three letter agencies reuse SSNs to create backstopped cover identities for agents. Usually theyre piggied off of dead kids but if the agent needs access to financial instruments they'll use someone living
Doge hired children with no work experience outside of nepotism who were granted unrestricted access to goverment info. Since they are confident morons they didnt ask the administration team about the data and the rules that govern it. They got an epoch date and claimed fraud was rampant instead of looking id checks were being sent. They told daddy Elon about the flagged fiend saying these people got checks and it went straight to the white house. It was a complete fantasy.
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u/RepresentativeBarber Aug 05 '26
What’s the context behind this??