The claims of widespread fraud don’t maintain water.
Elon Musk, on the “Joe Rogan Expertise,” reiterated the declare that the Social Safety numbers of 20 million useless persons are getting used to steal $100 billion in advantages annually. He retains repeating this so-called instance of fraud, waste, and abuse that he purportedly discovered on the Social Safety Administration. His search of the company’s database had turned up thousands and thousands of individuals ages 100 and older. His obvious reasoning is that almost all of those persons are definitely useless, and due to this fact numerous fraud was occurring by paying advantages to useless individuals.
So as to add weight to his story, Musk shared his numbers on Twitter. Certainly, his minions discovered about 20 million people with ages over 100, all of whom presumably had been useless and receiving advantages.
Tuesday evening, President Trump repeated these unproven declare in his tackle to Congress.
The Social Safety database contains all people who ever paid into the system or obtained advantages. It is smart to have a whole document of this system’s historic exercise. The Musk workforce requested the machine to scan the database and determine all those that didn’t have a date of loss of life related to their document, and that question netted the numbers Musk shared.
Two points are essential right here. First, it’s not stunning that the Musk numbers exceed the U.S. inhabitants (see Determine 1). Certainly, greater than a decade in the past a 2015 audit report from the company’s Inspector Basic recognized the dearth of loss of life information as an issue that must be addressed. Nevertheless, given the manpower required to repair the historic document and Social Safety’s restricted finances, the company determined to deal with enhancing the system for present and future employees relatively than finishing historic documentation. Therefore, whereas it might be good if every document had a date of loss of life, many don’t.
Second, simply because data of very previous individuals exist with out a loss of life date, that doesn’t imply that these useless persons are receiving checks. Two items of proof assist that rivalry. Crucial is that the variety of checks going out for retirement and incapacity advantages are simply what one would anticipate. For instance, the inhabitants of these ages 65+ is 59 million, and the variety of checks going out to retired employees, their spouses and their widow/widowers is 56 million (see Determine 2). If checks had been additionally going out to 21 million previous useless individuals, the overall variety of funds would far exceed the inhabitants 65+.
On a extra micro stage, the 2015 Inspector Basic’s report famous that whereas the examiners had discovered thousands and thousands of individuals within the system who had been probably useless, they recognized solely 13 checks going to beneficiaries who had been probably 112+. The truth is, a handful of individuals do dwell to that age.
After all, any group that pays out $1.4 trillion annually to retired and disabled people and their households will inevitably make errors. The Social Safety Advisory Board, a gaggle of out of doors specialists, recurrently points suggestions to enhance the accuracy of the system’s funds, resembling having the Treasury Division accumulate the info on deaths.
It’s essential, nevertheless, to remember the magnitude of Social Safety’s errors. In line with a July 2024 Inspector Basic’s report, between 2015 and 2022, the Social Safety Administration’s improper funds accounted for lower than 1 % of whole funds. Apparently that error price is decrease than for any non-public insurance coverage firm.
In abstract then, the Social Safety Administration is just not excellent – it makes some fee errors and doesn’t have the date of loss of life on a few of its previous data. And due to the dearth of loss of life dates, I’m not stunned that the Musk workforce discovered many data the place the beneficiaries ages could be 100+. However these data present no indication of waste, fraud, and abuse. The truth is, the individuals who one would suppose must be receiving the checks are those getting the checks, and the Inspector Basic might discover solely 13 checks going to these over 112.
If Musk and his minions wish to make themselves helpful, perhaps they may fill within the lacking dates of loss of life on the Social Safety database.