Are DOGE's Claims of Social Security Payments to 150-Year-Olds Way Off Base?
Claims from Elon Musk’s government tech team (DOGE) that Social Security is paying benefits to “150-year-old” recipients are widely criticized as a misreading of messy legacy data rather than proof of large-scale fraud. Commenters point to quirks in old COBOL-based systems, placeholder or missing birthdates, and the inherent anomalies of massive government databases, while raising concern that unverified assertions are being weaponized politically and spread as fact. Many argue the real issue is both the technical complexity of decades-old infrastructure and the lack of care taken to understand it before making public accusations.
Technical Explanations for “150-Year-Olds”
- Many commenters argue this is almost certainly a data/ETL/reporting issue, not evidence of benefits actually being paid to 150‑year‑olds.
- A common hypothesis: a birthdate field uses a sentinel or epoch value (e.g., 0 or a fixed historical date) to represent “unknown/unchecked” rather than real age.
- Others note SSA has formal procedures for people without birth certificates; age can be established via work history, children’s records, or other documents, and the system may use estimated or special-coded dates internally.
- Several point out that at large scale, data is messy: FNU/LNU names, lost or burned records, foreign births, undocumented people, and contradictory dates are normal.
- Some suggest the anomaly could arise in a downstream reporting system (casting error, missing joins, treating text dates as numeric, etc.) rather than in the core SSA database.
Debate Over the “1875 COBOL Epoch” Story
- A widely repeated story claims a COBOL/ISO epoch of May 20, 1875 explains the “150 years” figure.
- Others are skeptical: no clear preexisting documentation of that epoch is produced; COBOL implementations use various epochs, but 1875 as a standard is unproven.
- One commenter cites SSA NUMIDENT documentation suggesting dates are stored as strings (YYYYMMDD / MMDDYYYY), making a 1875 epoch less likely.
- Conclusion in the thread: some legacy system might use 1875 as a sentinel, but this is unverified and possibly internet folklore.
Fraud vs. Anomaly
- Several participants stress that “very old” entries are expected anomalies in such a huge system; they do not imply payments or fraud by themselves.
- Others note that real fraud exists (dead people paid, SSNs misused), but that finding outliers by naive “age > X” queries is not a serious fraud analysis method.
Criticism of DOGE / Musk
- Repeated criticism that DOGE and its leader make confident, public claims without basic verification, treating technical anomalies as political ammunition.
- Some see this as part of a broader strategy to flood media with misinformation and to delegitimize Social Security.
- There is concern about unqualified or junior staff misinterpreting complex legacy systems, and about how they obtained such deep access to sensitive government data.
Broader Context and Concerns
- Commenters emphasize that long‑running national systems are inherently complex, with decades of ad‑hoc decisions and edge cases.
- Several are alarmed that, regardless of the technical details, the episode will harden into a “fact” in certain political circles that Social Security pays 150‑year‑olds, with little incentive for public retractions.