Elon Musk, who has been granted sweeping powers by President Trump, has been making extravagant claims about the existence of massive fraud at the Social Security Administration. Supposedly millions of people are being paid benefits improperly. Trillions of dollars are being stolen. I could go through the various allegations he is making and show why they’re false but it’s pointless. The readers of this blog already know there is no substance to any of this. None. Besides, by tomorrow there will be new tall tales.
I can’t figure out what Musk’s game is. Does he really believe this nonsense? Is he spreading lies because he wants to destabilize Social Security? Is he trying to prepare the political landscape for some massive change in Social Security? What happens when Musk’s DOGE minions are unable to find any fraud beyond one man who buried his mother in his backyard so he could continue to receive her Social Security benefits?
Whatever Musk’s game may be, he’s causing lasting damage. Credulous people will continue to believe his fairy tales for decades to come. It’s depressing.
20 comments:
Assuming there is even a basis for the "150 year olds" claim, I strongly suspect that is a misunderstanding of DAC benefits, and relate to either exceptional cases of very elderly fathers having a child, or more likely, DAC recipients who are qualified through their grandparents' SSN.
Any insiders know if DAC payments are tracked by the insured individual's SSN, not the recipient? Pretty sure they are.
For those who were genuinely interested in what they mean by ““ efficiency” and” reducing fraud”just take a look at the heritage foundation’s plan for Social Security disability. Read that and decide if you like it. ignore the buzz words and look at the substance. If you’re disability or plan to apply, it is not good for you. Their plans include, but are not limited to: making it harder for an attorney to represent you, creating a flat benefit, getting rid of the grid rules, and being more aggressive about continuing disability reviews.
What a waste of time it would be to shake down America's most vulnerable for nickels and dimes to find a few cases of fraud. They wouldn't even recover enough money to recoup the additional administrative costs. And according to the 2024 Trustees Report, "DI Trust Fund asset reserves are not projected to become depleted during the 75-year period ending in 2098."
Musk and his minions by no means have a clue what the Social Security Administration does or what each federal agency does. There is absolutely no reason to go into each agency with a chainsaw as opposed to approaching things by peeling back layers to find out what does or doesn't work.
Also, the Senate, House of Representatives, the President, the Vice President and even the Supreme Court doesn't know the full extent of what the everyday workings of the Social Security Administration does nor of any federal agency. The place to start is to talk to the frontline workers, supervisors, and managers at SSA working in the FOs, PSCs, and TSCs to find out what the agency does and what issues they are having that could help serve the public better.
The $%it will hit the fan when the rush that Musk and his minions are taking and have taken with other federal agencies affects the mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or friend of someone in the Senate, House of Representatives, the President, the Vice President, or the Supreme Court is severely affected. SSA has gone years without proper funding by Congress so the antiquated system (COBOL) could be updated to work more efficiently, more people could be hired, and more overtime could be worked, but NO, it has never been funded enough.
It is horrible and unprecedented that unlawful powers were given to Musk and his minions to see and previously provided written access to the Treasury systems. Who knows what was copied and set up elsewhere on their own system or sent elsewhere. The entire public should be ticked off. Unfortunately, the country is getting what "the people" voted for. I wonder how all those that voted for the President and the lack of backbone and moral compass of the Republicans who are cow tailing to the President will feel when the damage will not be able to be undone? Why are the Republicans so afraid of being "primaried"? There is voice in numbers.... the President is bullying everyone. Why are they all wearing blinders? SMH
Remember
The disaster under Reagan when he tried to jumpstart the sensible Pickle bill si he could gain credit for it and told us to be meaner than a junk yard when reviewing claims
1) The only way Elon and Donny can finance the deficit shortfall caused by their tax regime is to find $4 trillion to “trim” from the federal budget. “Fraud” is just the excuse and facts are irrelevant to their goal.
2) The GOP has had it in for Social Security since FDR created it - it’s in their DNA and, again, facts aren’t relevant.
3) Wall Street has been salivating to gamble with the SSA trust for decades - whether their bets pay off is irrelevant as long as they getting their cut in commissions.
As always - its all about the money.
After years and years of seeing the gross incompetence on the part of this agency, I have no problem believing they are paying benefits to 150 year olds. I've seen it take them more than a year and a Writ of Mandamus to process a single form.
He wants it privatized and run on shoddy X software designed by his racist child friends, and to have the trust funds invested in Doge Coin and $Trump.
I anticipate your possible explanation could be on target! When will the exaggerations without proper explanations be stopped; aren't they misleading the public!! Why does the public believe everything being thrown at them?
I thought SSA made personal contact with beneficiaries over 90 who don't use Medicare to verify they are alive. Not sure how people way over 100 would escape that checking.
Elon is reporting fake news.The SSA has a Medicare non utilization project and alerts based on age to verity eligibility for benefits.
Your correct,during my 40 year career with SSA I made numerous contacts as you described .Even celebrated a 100 year olds birthday (I bought the cake)This is just another sensationalist lie like migrants eating dogs.
As others have stated just look at the savings of having Wall Street take over SS and private health care companies taking over Medicare
By letting people go and then celebrating inefficiency they will claim private industry can do it better.
If the government really wanted to explore fraud it would take a look at some of those self employed people with low benefit amounts running a cash business
I suspect and it is certainly possible that a 158 year old was paid, if they were dead, which is more than likely. Some/many of you may recall all the reports of SSA paying dead people stimulus checks back in 2008/2009. Yeah, that happened. Treasury didn't stop the payments b/c of the way the system is designed - Treasury doesn't evaluate the legitimacy of payments, that's up to each individual agency that sends a payment file to Treasury. So, could Treasury do a simple compare to the 'Do Not Pay' data set before issuing payment? I mean, the banks do it now . . . and return payments to Treasury for dead people who are on the file from SSA. So why pay in the first place?
Hi Charles, please debunk the claims around Social Security fraud if you can. I have had numerous family and friends repeating these as if they’re gospel. Social Security Works! by Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson has proven somewhat useful in this regard, though the text is a little dated.
Elon also had a rant on X yesterday about supposed fraud he found in SSA’s database, only to attack database experts who instantly realized the so-called tech genius was woefully ignorant on the database infrastructure and misinterpreted what he was seeing.
House Republicans released a budget plan Wednesday that sets the stage for advancing many of President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities, providing for up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit so that the U.S. can continue financing its bills.
The budget plan also directs a variety of House committees to cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion while stating that the goal is to reduce spending by $2 trillion over 10 years.
What about system efficiencies? Seems like everything that’s been implemented in the past decade only slow things down or flat out don’t work.
Back in 2015 when the issue of 150 year olds being on the rolls first emerged, the Inspector General did a review. https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
That review basically showed maybe 13 people over 112 receiving benefits. My understanding is that since then, with cross-matching with Medicare and other checks, there are much better controls and the likelihood of any significant number of these cases existing is very low. That does not mean, as Charles said, there are no cases of dead people receiving benefits. I am aware of at least one case of burying Mom in the back yard and collecting benefits, but Mom was not over 100 when this was caught. Fraud happens, but the actual numbers are very, very low.
Yes, fraud happens and there are cases where deaths go unrepreported. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/02/fla-man-secretly-buried-his-dead-mother-in-backyard-to-collect-her-social-security-pension-checks/ but those are rare and it is hard to see what system improvements would catch every such case immediately although, over time, with no Medicare claims, they can be checked. and investigated and caught. I believe SS is already doing this.
My record for trying to stop payments for a person that died was 26 months. I could not get the agency to stop payments.
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