Recording The Undead

      From a press release:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit report, Beneficiaries Incorrectly Recorded as Deceased (032311).  The audit examined whether SSA employees complied with Agency policies when correcting the records of living beneficiaries who were incorrectly recorded as deceased.  …

The OIG reviewed a random sample of beneficiaries whom SSA recorded as deceased between January 2020 and December 2024 and later removed the death records from the Numident (and thereby removing such records from the DMF).  Auditors found that, when SSA technicians corrected 45 percent of the incorrect death records, they did not document why the deaths were recorded in the first place, or why they were subsequently removed, as required by Agency policy. …

SSA To Promote Trump Accounts

      From a Social Security press release:

Today, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced it is launching processes for parents to enroll newborns in Trump Accounts. This automatic system will help ensure that every newborn has the opportunity to benefit from a Trump Account from the start of life. …

Starting next week, Social Security will update guidance to hospitals to include Trump Account enrollment information.  SSA will assist the states to modify their existing hospital forms used by parents to apply for Social Security numbers through the Enumeration at Birth (EAB) program to include the automatic creation of a Trump Account. Future Social Security card mailers for newborns will also include information to inform parents about the benefits of Trump Accounts and convenient and streamlined ways to open an account. …

Happy Birthday America

 

Not created by SSA. ChatGPA did it at my prompt.

The Questions Had To Be Asked

      From the Washington Post (emphasis added):

To commemorate America’s 250th birthday, the Social Security Administration will issue limited-edition Social Security cards to babies born from Thursday to the end of the year.
The cards look similar to the standard blue wallet-sized Social Security cards the agency has issued for decades, but they are stamped with the “Freedom 250″ logo. Freedom 250 is the public-private initiative the Trump administration launched last year to organize events — often aligned with the administration — for the nation’s semiquincentennial. It is different from America250, a nonprofit established by Congress in 2016 to organize such celebrations.
The Social Security Administration said Thursday the agency was not paying any licensing fees for the Freedom 250 logo and that there were no arrangements to share cardholders’ data with Freedom 250. …

250 Years Ago We Decided We Didn’t Want Any Of These

 

Don’t Tell Trump; He’ll Demand To Have His Picture On Them

Mock-up of card

      From Fox News:

Millions of babies born during America's 250th anniversary celebration will receive a first-of-its-kind commemorative Social Security card under a new Social Security Administration (SSA) initiative obtained exclusively by FOX Business.

The limited-edition cards, available only to children born in the United States between July 2 and Dec. 31, 2026, will feature the official Freedom 250 logo while functioning exactly like a standard Social Security card, according to an announcement from the Social Security Administration shared with FOX Business. …

Cardiovascular Listings Changes

      The Social Security Administration is amending its Listings of Impairments for the cardiovascular system. This will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow but you can read it today.

A Letter From The Commissioner

      The Commissioner of Social Security has sent a letter to the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee claiming that “service is better than ever” at Social Security. The letter includes selected statistics. The definitions and significance of some, if not all, of the numbers given are unclear to me.

     As Mark Twain said, “Figures don’t lie but liars often figure” or, as WC. Fields is alleged to have said, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”