Social Security has spent weeks cleaning up its records. They’re removing millions of people listed as over 120 years old.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shared the update online. They said it’s been a multi-week process.
"For the past 3 weeks, Social Security has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 7 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. Another ~5 million to go," DOGE posted.
This started after Elon Musk raised concerns. He pointed out that way too many Social Security numbers were linked to people with impossible ages.
"The logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks INSANE. No one person actually knows how it works. The payment files that move between Social Security and Treasury have significant inconsistencies that are not reconciled. It’s wild," Musk said in February.
"There are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history," he added.
Neither Musk nor DOGE claimed payments were going to all those outdated accounts. But Musk believes the bad data could be causing massive waste.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Lee Dudek responded. "The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits."
Some critics fired back at Musk’s claims. They said the SSA sometimes marks living people as dead, which stops their payments.
The SSA admitted those mistakes can happen. But they said, “less than one-third of 1 percent are erroneously reported deaths that need to be corrected.”