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Simon Jack and together we host Good

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Bad billionaire the podcast exploring the lies

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of some of the world's richest people

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in the new season We're setting our sights on

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some big names. Yep LeBron James and Martha

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Stewart to name just a few and as

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always Simon and I are trying to decide

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whether we think they're good bad or just

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another billionaire that's good bad billionaire

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from the BBC world service Listen

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now wherever you get your BBC

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podcasts Hello,

0:38

and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. We're

0:40

the program that looks at the numbers in the news

0:43

and in life, and I'm Lizzie McNeill. As

0:48

we mentioned last week, the Trump administration is

0:50

featuring a lot in our programs at the

0:52

moment. Sorry, we just find

0:55

them dangling data irresistible. This

0:57

week, President Trump was giving another audience

1:00

to the press about the administration's efforts

1:02

to cut fraud and unnecessary spending in

1:04

the US government. He

1:06

revealed that DOGE, which is the Department

1:09

for Government Efficiency, had discovered that the

1:11

United States Social Security Administration, which is

1:13

the body that deals with the US

1:15

version of pensions and benefits, had millions

1:17

of people with live accounts.

1:19

There were over 100 years

1:22

of age. People that are

1:24

120 years old, up

1:26

to 129. 3

1:29

,472 ,000 people.

1:31

Wow. Elon

1:34

Musk, the head of Doge, doubled down on this.

1:36

examination of social security and we've got

1:38

people in there that 150 years

1:40

old. Now, do you know anyone

1:42

who has 150? I don't. Okay. They

1:45

should be on the Guinness Book of World Records.

1:47

You know, that's the case where like, I think

1:49

they're probably dead. It's my later tweeted The

1:51

Social Security Administration in the United States

1:53

might be the biggest source of fraud

1:55

in the whole of human history. Elon

1:58

and the president correct? Has

2:00

Doge uncovered the biggest fraud in

2:03

history? As

2:06

you may or may not know,

2:08

the Trump administration has granted themselves

2:10

and Doge the rights to access

2:12

data that administrations usually don't have

2:15

access to, such as Numident. It

2:29

contains the name of the applicant, place and

2:31

date of birth and other information. The

2:34

Numident file contains all social security

2:36

numbers since they were first issued

2:38

in 1936. As they

2:40

were trawling through it, they noticed that

2:42

millions of people in the database appear

2:44

to be very old indeed. People

2:47

from 140 years old

2:50

to 149 years old,

2:52

3 ,542 ,000. So

3:07

let's fact check this first bit. Are

3:09

there masses of people aged over 100

3:12

in the SSA data sets? And

3:14

the answer is yes.

3:17

In fact, there are about 18

3:20

.9 million of them. So what's

3:22

going on? Is the US inhabited

3:24

by a ton of sparkly -skinned,

3:26

pointy -toothed immortals? Vampire.

3:30

Sadly, no. It is instead

3:32

down to something decidedly unsexy. Coding

3:35

practice. The software system

3:37

is the fault of missing birth dates

3:39

to more than 150 years ago. I'm

3:42

Tim Smeeding, the extinguished professor at the

3:44

University of Wisconsin -Manus, and that's what

3:46

you say when you're a new retiree.

3:49

If the Numerdent system has data missing,

3:51

they default the birth dates to more

3:53

than 150 years ago, the 20th of

3:56

May 1875 to be precise, making them

3:58

all very old tourist. This

4:00

is odd, but apparently it's

4:02

actually an international standard, so

4:04

common practice. Other instances

4:06

of very old people in the data are due

4:09

to missing death records. But

4:11

none of this was hidden information. But

4:13

I've been on social security advisory boards

4:15

before. was on

4:17

the Social Security Modernization Group in 1992

4:20

and so forth. So I know lot

4:22

about the program and the facts were

4:24

just there. They check every year and

4:26

things like this. The facts are indeed

4:28

just there and they've been just there

4:30

for quite a while. The

4:32

topic of the suspicious amount of very,

4:35

very old people in the SSA system

4:37

was first pointed out in 2015 by

4:39

the Inspector General for Social Security and

4:41

then again in a follow -up report

4:43

in 2023. In both

4:46

reports they found that Approximately 18

4:48

.9 million number holders born in

4:50

1920 or earlier did not have

4:52

death information on their numer dent

4:54

record. Now, for context, the amount

4:56

of people aged over 100 without

4:58

death records represents Approximately 3 .6

5:01

% of all numer dent records.

5:03

So Donald Trump and Doge are

5:05

correct. There are millions of people

5:07

aged over 100 on the database

5:09

who have not been signed off

5:11

as dead. But they've

5:13

not discovered this. It was common

5:15

knowledge. So, why wasn't it fixed?

5:18

Well, the inspector general advised that the

5:20

agency go through and change all of

5:22

these records. However, the agency responded that

5:24

this would cost them upwards of five

5:26

million dollars to do. So,

5:28

the 18 .9 million, very old, but

5:30

actually not very old, just mostly dead

5:32

people, remain. As Musk and

5:34

the president pointed out, there could be

5:36

a problem though. As these people do

5:38

not have a death record attached to

5:40

the system, they could theoretically be receiving

5:42

social security payments. Except

5:47

they aren't. The Inspector General

5:49

also covered that in their

5:51

report. Officials also noted that almost

5:54

none of the 18 .9

5:56

million number holders currently receive

5:58

SSA payments. Almost none

6:00

means that some do. So, who

6:02

are they? Fraudsters? Teenage elves? Vampires?

6:08

No, they're likely just old people

6:10

collecting their social security payments. The

6:12

census for 2023 showed that there were

6:15

nearly 90 ,000 people in America aged

6:17

over 100, and recent data from Pew

6:19

Research put that number at more than

6:22

100 ,000. If you look

6:24

at recent SSA data, then you can

6:26

see that 86 ,000 people in the

6:28

100 and above bracket currently receive social

6:30

security benefits, not tens of millions

6:32

as Elon Musk has suggested. The

6:35

maths are math -ing. But the

6:37

fact that a lot of dead people's social

6:39

security numbers are still active could pose a

6:41

problem. It does open the door to

6:43

fraud, just not the type of fraud that would make the

6:45

agency or government lose money, as the

6:48

Inspector General's report noted. In

6:50

tax years 2016 through 2020,

6:52

employers and individuals reported

6:55

approximately $8 .5 billion

6:57

in wages, tips and

6:59

self -employment income using

7:01

139 ,211 SSNs assigned

7:03

to individuals aged 100

7:05

or older. One security

7:08

number appeared on 405 different wage

7:10

reports. So, who are these

7:12

individuals and why are they using dead

7:15

people's security numbers? Well, it's

7:17

normally people who can't get social security

7:19

numbers. Immigrants. That's

7:21

been true for years. People

7:23

come who are immigrants and their employer says, OK,

7:25

you have to have a social security number. And

7:28

they put in a number that 1 ,000 or

7:30

2 ,000 people use. And they pay

7:32

in just like everybody else, but they never take it

7:34

out. That's one of the reasons they're on that plus.

7:37

Immigrants in our country. So

7:39

the numbers are being used fraudulently, but not

7:41

to claim benefit. Now, the SSA

7:43

does have systems in place to try and

7:46

catch this fortunate activity. Staff

7:48

does interviews every year with people

7:50

hunted and over. They check every

7:52

year for whoever the designated representative

7:54

is for a person who's really

7:56

older and capacitated or the actual

7:58

person. They check the death records

8:00

to make sure they're not collecting

8:02

off of dead people and so

8:04

forth. I mean, I'm

8:07

sure you can find a couple

8:09

of cases where fraud was committed.

8:11

But the idea that we're going

8:13

to find there's billions of dollars

8:15

in overpayments to dead people is

8:18

just factually wrong. So

8:20

is the SSA a perfect system?

8:23

Do they never ever waste money? Of

8:26

course not. There is money

8:28

wasted from overpayments, underpayments, changes

8:30

in circumstances. The SSA

8:32

estimate that 0 .85 % of

8:34

all social security payments paid out

8:36

are what they call improper. This

8:39

is a small percentage of the total paid

8:41

out, but it does add up to $71

8:43

billion. The agency managed

8:45

to claw back $31 million of this

8:47

in January. So, there

8:49

is wastage. But not because the

8:51

agency is paying millions of fraudsters

8:54

the hard -earned pensions of decidedly

8:56

departed Americans. Yet again,

8:58

we've been presented data that's being used

9:00

to construct a reality that isn't actually

9:02

happening. Podcaster Trish Regan, who

9:05

is a loud and proud MAGA supporter,

9:07

sums up well on Twitter. And

9:14

with that, we leave you. Thanks to Tim

9:17

Smeding and all the other experts I spoke

9:19

to who could not appear on the record

9:21

this week. If you have any

9:23

questions or comments, do write in to more

9:25

or less at bbc .co .uk. And

9:28

our Radio 4 series is fast approaching. Let

9:30

us know what you want covered. Until next

9:32

week, goodbye. I'm

9:39

Xing Xing. And I'm Simon Jack. And together,

9:41

we host Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring

9:43

the lives of some of the world's richest

9:45

people. In the new season, we're setting our

9:47

sights on some big names. Yep, LeBron James

9:49

and Martha Stewart to name just a few.

9:52

And as always, Simon and I are trying

9:54

to decide whether we think they're Good, Bad

9:56

or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire

9:58

from the BBC World Service.

10:00

Listen now wherever you get

10:02

your BBC podcasts.