ArcaMax

Many readers have been emailing me asking for my help in understanding the allegations made by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency about sloppy recordkeeping at the Social Security Administration. Here are three typical questions.

Q: What is going on with the DOGE reports about Social Security recipients who are supposedly 120 years old?

Q: Elon Musk says that there are millions of people in Social Security files who are at least 150 years old. Who is cashing all the checks sent to these obviously nonexistent people?

Q: I've heard that millions of people well over 100 years old are being sent Social Security checks every month. What's going on?

Let me begin by making this key point. The Social Security records in question are NOT Social Security benefit payment records. Those records are meticulously maintained and updated constantly. Every single study I've ever seen, by both government and private sector oversight groups, has shown that Social Security benefit payments are remarkably correct -- with about 99.8% accuracy.

So, despite all these ridiculous rumors to the contrary, Social Security benefit checks are NOT being sent to people who died a long time ago.

The mismanaged records in question belong to a completely separate set of files maintained by the Social Security Administration. They are the Social Security number files. Internally (within the SSA), it is called the Numident file. This is a file of every Social Security number that has ever been issued and some corresponding data about the person to whom that number was issued.

I'm in that file. You're in that file. Anyone who has ever had a Social Security number is in that file. The data in that file comes from the form you filled out when you got your first Social Security card. To refresh your memory (because most people reading this probably got their SSN card 50 or 60 years ago), the form asked for your name, your date and place of birth and your parents' names.

So, all those records (hundreds of millions of them) make up the Numident file. Now, I can't stress enough that the Numident file has nothing to do with other key files maintained by the SSA, such as earnings record files for all working Americans and the beneficiary payment files for everyone getting a monthly Social Security check.

The problem is that even though Social Security earnings records and beneficiary payment records are constantly maintained and updated, especially when someone dies, those reports of death did not always get transferred over to the Numident files.

I can think of an example of how that might happen. Say John Doe was born in 1900 and got a Social Security number in 1935. Then, he died in 1938, having never been married or had children. Back then, there was no need to report that death to the Social Security Administration because there were no benefit payments to stop and no survivor benefits to apply for. So, the Numident file for John Doe will show no date of death. And that means you could look at that file and say that the SSA has a record of a guy (John Doe) who is 125 years old.

And then you multiply that John Doe story by a million other instances like that and you come up with a Numident file that has not been properly maintained. (But to be fair and put things in perspective, those incorrect files are a small percentage of the whole universe of SSN records.)

On the one hand, you could say, "What's the big deal if John Doe's date of death is not recorded in the Numident file if it has nothing to do with the SSA's other, more important files such as earnings records and beneficiary payment data?" On the other hand, it is still a case of sloppy recordkeeping by the SSA, and those Numident files should be updated to show proper dates of death for everyone.

Here's another way of looking at this story. Suppose Betty Crocker was proud of the fact that she maintained an absolutely immaculate house. Every room is meticulously cleaned each day, everything is in its place and there is never a spot of dust to be found anywhere. But Betty does have one room down in the corner of the basement that she rarely enters. It's a storage room of sorts where, because of her scrupulous habits, everything is mostly in order. But she still has some stray clutter in it that she's been meaning to get to someday. Because Betty spends so much time keeping the rest of her place in tip-top shape, she just hasn't had the time to get down to the storage room to clean it.

Then, one day, Betty learns that the people at Good Housekeeping Magazine are coming over to inspect her house. When they arrive, she proudly opens the door, ready to show off all her hard work. But lo and behold, they head straight for the basement and go into her storage room. They are shocked by the disarray and proceed to write a story accusing Betty of being a sloppy housekeeper. The story goes viral, and now poor Betty is shamed across the country. Furthermore, the Good Housekeeping people are threatening to send in their own people to clean up Betty's alleged mess.

Of course, in that little story, Betty is the Social Security Administration. Her meticulously kept home is all of the SSA's many data files. But that basement storage room is the Numident file. The Good Housekeeping people are Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

It's just too bad for Betty that Good Housekeeping has dwelled on the only unclean room in her home and besmirched her reputation. And it's too bad for the Social Security Administration that its reputation for benefit payment accuracy has been muddied by a DOGE story taken out of context.

Having said all that, it obviously would be wise for Betty to clean her storage room and for the SSA to clean up its Numident files.

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If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called "Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security." The other is "Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts." You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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