WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration plays a critical role in helping people with financial relief in their later years of life, but for some people, the checks don’t ever stop.
“What we found is their books are a mess,” said Adam Andrzejewski with OpenTheBooks.com.
He shared data with us that showed 6 million Social Security numbers that were active for people aged 112-years-old and older.
“Here’s the problem: there’s only 40 of those people alive in the entire world,” Andrzejewski said. “Last year, Social Security paid out $8 billion improperly.”
He said the problem was the administration not keeping up with its books.
“This was payments to beneficiaries, people who were disabled, all sorts of programs that were administered by the Social Security Administration,” Andrzejewski said.
For years, Congress has grilled Social Security officials, who blame the errors on things like people not reporting a family member’s death, administrative errors and “other reasons.”
A bill has been introduced in the Senate to stop dead people from receiving these payments, but Andrzejewski said it has gone nowhere.
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