Social Security for 200-Year-Olds?

DOGE and Pres. Trump have each made shocking claims about the program, but the confusion around them demonstrates the government still has an enormous transparency problem.

The Department of Government Efficiency has unfurled a long list of stunning claims about waste, fraud and duplication throughout the federal government. Even for those of us who have spent years collecting and analyzing spending data, some of the claims are beyond the pale if they’re accurate.

In his March address to a joint session of Congress, though, President Trump rattled off amounts of individuals who are in the Social Security database but aged over 100 years old. It amounted to 20.6 million individuals.

“But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty,” Trump said.

Elon Musk and DOGE later announced they’d identified -- and cancelled -- 3.2 million obsolete Social Security numbers for people over 120 years old. They later updated that amount to 7 million.

Those broadly conflicting figures leave the door wide open to confusion and worry from Americans and criticism from a media struggling to verify DOGE claims in real time. More careful, consistent communications from across the administration could mitigate at least some of this risk.

Open the Books auditors were already working to retrieve and analyze data about the age distribution of Social Security recipients, so we’re sharing what we’ve found so far – and more importantly, what the Social Security Administration cannot or will not provide to the public.

THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

In his address, President Trump identified a befuddling set of ages for folks who allegedly remain in the Social Security database.

“We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on,” Trump said. “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old.”

He continued, to laughter from the audience, “It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don’t know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly.”

Here’s a full chart of the increasingly unbelievable – and then, impossible – ages for individuals the President says are in the Social Security database.

Trump then told members of Congress and viewers at home that “money is being paid to many of them, and we’re searching it right now….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.”

As he reached ages in the 200s, Trump joked, “We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby!”

Of the individual listed at 360 years old, the president noted that was “more than 100 years older than our country.”

“But we’re going to find out where that money is going and it’s not going to be pretty.”

DOGE CANCELS MILLIONS OF SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS

On March 18, the X account for DOGE posted that they were doing a “major cleanup” of the Social Security database.

“For the past two weeks, @SocialSecurity has begun a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 3.2 million numberholders [sic], all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. More work still to be done,” the post stated.

A week later, on March 25, DOGE updated the figure to 7 million now marked as deceased. “Another ~5 million to go,” said the post.

Presumably, Americans will receive another update soon, although it remains difficult to see or verify what DOGE is seeing.

SO WHAT IS THE TRUE NUMBER??

Even if another roughly 5 million individuals are indeed marked as deceased, that would bring the whole of the Social Security “cleanup” to around 12 million names.

At the start of March, the President was citing 20.6 million people aged 100+ in the database, some of them getting paid benefits.

Why such a giant discrepancy?

Well, for one thing, Trump is citing a wider age range (100+) than DOGE (120+). If we align the age brackets and stick to those 120 or older, Trump alleged 12.3 million in the system.

That gets much closer to DOGE’s ongoing cleanup, where the team has marked 7 million deceased and expects to update “~5 million” more Social Security numbers – bringing the total to roughly 12 million.

WHO’S GETTING THE MONEY?

But that still leaves unanswered questions for the public.

In his address, the president suggested checks were going out to addresses associated with some of these Social Security numbers. Is that true? If so, how many?

The Social Security Administration gave a statement on March 5, as reported by Newsweek, to clarify: “The data referenced in the media pertain to individuals whose records lack a recorded date of death. While these individuals may not be receiving benefits, it is crucial for the agency to uphold accurate and complete records."

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, gave Newsweek his two cents as well: "Social Security fraud certainly exists, but the claims it's rampant because a database had many recipients who were supposedly aged at well over 100 years old isn't evidence it's widespread.”

To sum this up, it’s critical that Social Security Administration keep an accurate record of who is deceased or otherwise ineligible for benefits, so that American taxpayers are not endangering the fund by paying bogus claims.

But we have few answers as to how much of that was happening or what savings we’re gleaning.

If only we could ask the federal agency some detailed questions about their data, perhaps we’d know.

So how’s that going?

OPEN THE BOOKS STONEWALLED BY SSA

On January 14, 2025, Open the Books asked SSA for Social Security payment disbursements in fiscal year 2024 by age and state, for all 50 states. Nearly three months later, on April 5, we received a response, or rather, a non-response: SSA has no records responsive to our request.

The agency directed us to open-source data available on its website, which breaks down the number of SSA recipients by seemingly arbitrary age groups, like 62-64 and 90-99. There is a “100 or older” category, of which there are 73,815 beneficiaries, but that is as granular as the data gets. There is no information on how many social security numbers exist in general, broken down by age.

CONCLUSION

American taxpayers overwhelming favor “a full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government expenditures,” according to a February poll from Harvard CAPS/Harris. The poll found 76 percent of Americans support such an effort, including 62 percent of Democrats. DOGE critics in Congress are out of touch with taxpayers. Some critics in Congress want it both ways. They want to fault DOGE for not being clear enough, or overstepping their authority, while not using the power they have as elected members of the legislative branch to enact reforms that will protect the program for beneficiaries.

DOGE can silence its critics and help its allies by providing the level of detail and sourcing members need to enact durable reforms. On Special Report with Bret Baier, Musk said DOGE was reporting “as we go,” which appeared to mean updates on X. While this real-time ability to report progress can be transformative, it does leave room on the table for a litany of follow-up questions. In DOGE’s next era, there’s still room to convert on the promise of radical transparency.

Trump’s claim that “many of them are getting money,” in reference to the centenarians in the database, remains open to interpretation. Could it simply be bluster related to some of the 73,000 centenarians that SSA lists as actively receiving benefits? Are some of those folks in fact deceased?

Have they identified more deceased or fraudulent beneficiaries that Trump was alluding to in his speech? What money do we stand to save?

What’s clear, is the federal government continues to have an enormous transparency problem.

As Beene told Newsweek, "More than anything, the findings should alert the new administration to how antiquated many of the databases of government agencies are that normally produce errors such as these.”

Not only are the databases error prone, but agencies are often unable – or unwilling – to reveal basic information about their data sets.

The American people need access to this information so they can hold their elected representatives accountable, and Congress needs this information so they can reform a program that has an enormous impact on our debt and deficits as well as millions of retirees.

Editor’s Note: On June 6, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that DOGE can keep access to the Social Security database in its effort to root out waste and fraud. According to CNN:

“The Trump administration has pointed to three specific projects that justified granting DOGE access to the systems: a project, known as “Are You Alive?” scrutinizing whether payments are improperly going to deceased individuals; a scrub of agency data, known as the Death Data Clean Up Project, to update records of people the government believes to be deceased; and the Fraud Detention Project, which is looking at potential fraud in changes people make to their records, including with wage reporting and direct deposit information.”