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Social Security Data Says 6.5 Million People in US Reached Age 112

posted by n1 on Monday March 16 2015, @11:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-even-close.-i-am-5000 dept.

AnonTechie writes:

Americans are getting older, but not this old: Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112. In reality, only a few could possibly be alive. As of last fall, there were only 42 people known to be that old in the entire world.

But Social Security does not have death records for millions of these people, with the oldest born in 1869, according to a report by the agency's inspector general.

Only 13 of the people are still getting Social Security benefits, the report said. But for others, their Social Security numbers are still active, so a number could be used to report wages, open bank accounts, obtain credit cards, or claim fraudulent tax refunds.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-social-65m-age.html

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Monday March 16 2015, @11:53PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday March 16 2015, @11:53PM (#158640) Journal

    How else would letter agencies be able to enable their field people to live a cover life? ;)

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by SrLnclt on Tuesday March 17 2015, @12:06AM

    by SrLnclt (1473) on Tuesday March 17 2015, @12:06AM (#158644)

    We can track tiny details of the lives of billions of people around the world. But we can't figure out a way to get dead people off of social security and registered voter lists.

    Must be too busy thinking about all the children.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Tuesday March 17 2015, @01:16AM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday March 17 2015, @01:16AM (#158677)

      I'm guessing this is from the 60 Minutes story last night. The main focus of that was live people being declared dead, mostly because someone typed in a dead person't SSN wrong. Social Security promptly sends death notices to every database it know about that this person has died, which means you can't access your bank account, use a credit card, or access your money in any other way.

      What was laughable was they claimed something like a %0.03 error rate, not recognizing that that works out to tens or hundreds of people per year that get declared dead and have to spend years fixing the problem.

      --
      I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.