Elon Musk’s DOGE
With regard to the unique history of Social Security numbered records some 3.2
Million centenarian archives were deleted from the Social Security System with
DOGE’s intervention.
Elon Musk says that with a bold move to restore some integrity to federal records,
the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk has scrubbed around
3.2 million Social Security records of persons aged 120 years or older. This exercise
seeks primarily to address long-standing internal discrepancies with the Social
Security Administration (SSA) database.
Initiation of an Internal Cleanup
DOGE and the SSA were working to put the Administration’s house in order for
about two weeks. An official announcement on its X account stated that all
number holders listed with ages of 120 years and above have now been marked as
deceased. Musk also went ahead to repost the announcement and added: “Cleaning
up a database of dead people.”
Anomalies Get Unveiled
Prior to this purge, the SSA database allegedly harbored individuals supposedly
aged with a staggering number of 159 years. This anomaly was pointed out a
long time ago by Musk who also commented that such grossly inaccurate age
readings could lead to enormous inefficiencies and mismanagement of resources.
He joked about “vampires collecting Social Security”.
Old Systemic Problems Back Then
Old systems of the SSA are part of the reasons for these anomalies. Missing or
incomplete birth dates have often defaulted to a reference point over 100 years ago
thereby incorrectly creating age entries. The SSA Inspector General’s recent reports
stress that the agency is still dealing with many problems in updating the death
information records with millions of records left unprocessed
Fiscal Effects
These errors undeniably seem serious; however, it is important to stress that none
are believed to have resulted in wrongful payments into benefits until now. An
inspector general report on Social Security in 2024 stated that from the fiscal years
2015 through 2022, the agency made improper payments of an amount of less than
1 percent of almost $8.6 trillion paid in benefits to the public. Most of these
misapplied payments were to living individuals rather than deceased ones.
Public Response and Political Backlash
The initiative has received generally mixed responses. While proponents laud DOGE
for highly efficient government performance and precision in public records, a
Rasmussen poll claimed that more than 59 percent of respondents want to see
DOGE conduct an audit of the Social Security system.
Those against express concerns for overreaching and methodologies used during
the data cleanup. Others say that up-to-date infrastructure design needs to be put in
place for the SSA so that this will not happen again.
The Road Ahead
This is the last purgation, and it obviously emphasizes the need for modernization in
federal data systems. Essentially modernization of very sophisticated technology
systems and updates of older systems is needed in SSA in order to make its records
accurate and remain that way. thus the efforts of DOEG have provided a pivot around a
much bigger conversation.
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