More than 12 million people aged 120 and older were found to be listed in the Social Security database, the Department of Government Efficiency reported early Tuesday.
Of that total, roughly 3.2 million people now have been marked as being deceased, DOGE said with an update on its website.
"For the past two weeks, @SocialSecurity has begun a major cleanup of their records," the announcement said. "Approximately 3.2 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. More work still to be done."
The DOGE post showed the database on March 8 with extraordinary ages:
- 3,467,066 people aged 120-129
- 3,929,750 people aged 130-139
- 3,548,746 people aged 140-149
- 1,357,967 people aged 150-159
As of Monday, 3,261,057 of that overall number had been marked as being deceased.
DOGE, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, has been tasked to streamline the bureaucracy and reduce federal spending.
While critics scream about the administration making cuts to Social Security, President Donald Trump says his focus on entitlement spending only relates to "fraud, waste, and abuse" and that he will protect the basic benefits program.
Musk has called Social Security the "biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
In a recent interview he noted that "most of the federal spending is entitlements," citing Social Security as the worst of these programs.
"So that's the big one to eliminate," Musk said. "That's the sort of half trillion, maybe six, 700 billion."
Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to Trump, rejected talk of DOGE making drastic cuts to Social Security, telling Politico on Friday that it's not Musk's decision.
"Now, they're not going to cut Social Security. They're not going to cut Medicaid; they're just not. That's just fearmongering from the left," LaCivita said.
Last month, Musk said millions of people well above the age of 100 could be collecting Social Security benefits.
The SSA, however, has suggested those millions refer to many people who are not receiving benefits but "do not have a date of death associated with their record," Newsweek reported.
According to the agency's published statistics, 67 million Americans are receiving benefits, with approximately 53,000 being centenarians.
On its website, DOGE says it has saved $115 billion through "asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions" as of March 11.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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