Small Town Newspaper Produces First Rate Story: Serious Problems With Death Master File

From the Kitsap (WA) Sun:

Joyce Simpson, 87, was "scared to death" when her Social Security and pension checks stopped showing up in the mail. ...
It turns out the federal government had mistakenly declared Simpson dead in 1997. Her name was added to a list of deceased people in the United States maintained by the U.S. Social Security Administration called the "Death Master File." ...
The problem is it contains names of people like Simpson, who are very much alive. Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle admitted that one in every 200 entries to the Death Master Files is false because of "inadvertent keying errors" by federal workers. ...
Something similar happened to Helen Sturdivant of Bremerton, who also noticed the problem when her Social Security checks stopped.
She'd been declared dead in 1997, she discovered. ...
Simpson and Sturdivant are among 21 people in Kitsap and Mason counties who wrongly appeared in the Death Master File. In a sample of the years 1998, 2008 and 2011, Scripps Howard News Service identified nearly 32,000 names nationally that were wrongly put on the list. Those names, including those of the 21 local people, later were removed after the Social Security Administration identified the mistake.

Yes, it has been no secret that the Death Master File contains inaccuracies but I do not think that the extent of the inaccuracies has been known before. Widespread use of this error -illed database outside Social Security makes this a serious matter.

Update: The Kitsap newspaper is part of the Scripps chain. A similar story is many, if not all Scripps newspapers, each one highlighting the effects upon local people.