The Social Security Administration said Wednesday that it does have people with impossible ages still on its books, as President Trump said earlier this week, but that doesn’t mean they are getting benefits.
In his address to Congress on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said millions of people with ages over 100 years old are in the Social Security’s database.
Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said they are people for whom no death date was ever reported to the agency, though they may not be getting benefits.
“I thank President Trump for highlighting these inconsistencies during his speech last night to a joint session of Congress,” Mr. Dudek said. “We are steadfast in our commitment to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in our programs, and actively correcting the inconsistencies with missing dates of death.”
Mr. Trump pointed to the numbers as part of a lengthy section of his speech highlighting government waste and bad spending decisions.
“A lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does — and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country,” he said.
He said Social Security lists 4.7 million people ages 100 to 109 and another 14.5 million who are ages 110 to 149.
“And money is being paid to many of them. And we’re searching right now,” he said.
Social Security downplayed the potential payments but said the names still being in the system are an issue.
