According to multiple news sources, the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) has almost 21 million citizens registered in its data bank who are 100 to 369 years of age.
Look at that age bracket again – 100 to 369 – and let that statistic sink in.
Then, keep in mind that 114-year-old Naomi Whitehead from Pennsylvania is America’s oldest documented citizen, with various reports claiming that only 77 other Americans are currently 110 years of age or over.
Those 80 or so souls are a small percentage of the 80,000 American citizens identified as over 100 by our nation’s census from 2020.
And get this – in one documented SSA age category alone – there are 4,734,407 people in the governmental database supposedly between the ages of 100-109.
What if we just disregard the national census numbers and simply look at (and believe) the SSA statistics alone?
Even with that far-reaching concession, that still leaves more than 16 million Americans ages 110 and older, according to SSA data.
That number alone is insane ... 16 million citizens over 110 years of age.
And get this!
According to these figures, the SSA database lists more than a million and a half people over the age of 150 – with well over 2,000 people supposedly older than 200 years of age. Plus, one American listed over 240 and another one 360 or older
That is insane!
Now, granted, the Trump administration admitted that it has not fully examined the individual outgoing payment records to these 21 million centenarians. So, the possibility of actual governmental financial fraud is pending and still being investigated.
But even with this statistical initial information, everyday citizens have to wonder why the Big Boys of SSA did not catch this numerically impossible and gigantic statistic before now. And this “mistake” begs the question of who will be held responsible if financial fraud on such a large scale is proven true by our government.
Because the fact is, if any one of America’s average citizens was discovered to have defrauded the SSA, even by mistake, we would still be held accountable for our error. We would also be made to repay any wrongly received funds.
And if we had willingly and knowingly committed any such fraud, we would have opened our front doors to dozens of governmental agents yelling, “Go directly to jail; do not pass go, do not collect $200.”
Yet, instead of similar cries for justice from Average Joe and his fellow Americans, I hear people bemoaning the fact that the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered this statistical nightmare and possible misappropriation of our hard-earned tax dollars – in less than a month’s time, no less.
I, for one, applaud this examination of the SSA.
For most of my adult life, I have heard the warning that Social Security might not be able to sustain itself long enough for people my age and younger to ever draw out the money we were forced to pay into this agency during our work life.
Well, duh! Over 20 million dead people are still in the system’s database. That’s a huge problem.
And if monetary fraud is proven, such a revelation begs a whole set of other questions:
Did these fraudulent payments stop immediately?
How long did this misappropriation take place?
Who actually received this money?
Will this gigantic sum of money be recovered/repaid?
Who will be held responsible for this fraud?
How can we make sure it never happens again?
But more than that, if this report is accurate, and if these dead people were continually being paid from SSA funds, then every hardworking man and woman in America has been cheated.
Stop and think about it!
I think of the hours my own husband spent working in a local factory, hours of hot, exhausting work. I can see his dirty boots, set outside our door, as he came straight home from 12 hours of work to shower and change, so he could lug camera equipment to freely video our sons’ football games for their beloved school.
I look back at my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, all of whom worked hard for a living. My grandmother, as an example, never owned a car and never owned her own home but walked to work as a school cafeteria lady until she was 70. Even now, I envision her bundled up in cold, icy weather, walking in the sleeting rain, determined to never be a financial burden on her children.
I can also see my youngest son, who literally started working for a local landscaping company in junior high. He worked his way through high school and college, and then, he continued working after graduation. When he died at 37, he had literally worked and paid in funds to the SSA for 22 years. Yet, he never personally withdrew a dime of that money.
Personally, I worked for 23 years as a public school teacher. Yes, I chose that profession because I loved kids and wanted to teach and encourage students to do their best at whatever they attempted. I wanted to see them dream and then work to achieve those dreams.
But today, I think it would be a hard sell to talk to American students about personal integrity, hard work, and personal accountability when we just discovered that our own nation was possibly cheating us to such a large degree.
And if this governmental defrauding of its own citizens is proven to be true, I am not sure how today’s teachers are going to explain corruptness on such a grand level.
It’s inexplicable. It’s inexcusable. And it is high time that the Social Security Administration steps up and truly becomes accountable to American taxpayers for this mess.
As my hard-working grandmother used to say, “Hoe your own row first.”
While the Social Security agency is hoeing and straightening out its own crazy, messed up row, the agency also might need to remember who owns the land (i.e. taxpayer money) with which it was tasked to work.
It comes down to a matter of stewardship, faithful stewardship, to be exact. And the Bible explains it best in 1 Corinthians 4:2: “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”
Right now, American taxpayers are waiting with bated breath to see if the SSA will faithfully steward our money or not.
