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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, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday March 17 2015, @03:23AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday March 17 2015, @03:23AM (#158711) Journal

    Having employed more than a few people in my own business I can assure you an invalid SSN is indeed kicked back to the employer. It sometimes takes months. But it does come back. Happened twice to me. Two different guys. One turned out to be some guy on the lam. Too bad, because he was a cracker jack mechanic. The other turned out to be an illegal, Canadian, but we worked with him to get his green card and a valid SSN. A good programmer. Could have gotten a legal work visa just for the asking in those days.

    Now if they are illegals, sharing a borrowed SSN, nobody says boo about that.

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  • (Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday March 17 2015, @10:29AM

    by Non Sequor (1005) on Tuesday March 17 2015, @10:29AM (#158805) Journal

    I know that I see SSNs change a decent bit in data sets I work with based on wage reporting. Sometimes they change shortly after hire. Occasionally they change at retirement.

    My suspicion would be that any validation done by the SSA and IRS is based on the master death file plus a patchwork of fraud red flag rules which is why it doesn't trigger immediately.

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