Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) venture had uncovered huge authorities fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds had been claiming Social Safety advantages.
However Musk has offered no proof to again up his claims, and consultants rapidly identified that that is very possible only a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the federal government cost methods.
Musk first made the claims throughout his Oval Office press conference final week, when he claimed {that a} “cursory examination of Social Safety, and we acquired folks in there which might be 150 years outdated. Now, are you aware anybody that is 150? I do not know. They need to be within the Guinness Guide of World Data … In order that’s a case the place I believe they’re in all probability lifeless.”
Whereas no proof was produced to again up this declare, it was picked up by the right-wing commentators on-line, totally on Musk’s personal X platform, in addition to being reported credibly by pro-Trump media outlets.
Pc programmers rapidly claimed that the 150 determine was not proof of fraud, however reasonably the results of a bizarre quirk of the Social Safety Administration’s advantages system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases in addition to methods from many different US authorities companies.
COBOL is never used as we speak, and as such, Musk’s cadre of younger engineers could be unfamiliar with it.
As a result of COBOL doesn’t have a date sort, some implementations rely as an alternative on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. Essentially the most generally used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of a world standards-setting convention held in Paris, generally known as the “Conference du Mètre.”
These methods default to the reference level when a beginning date is lacking or incomplete, that means all of these entries in 2025 would present an age of 150.
That’s only one potential rationalization for what DOGE allegedly discovered. Musk may even have merely seemed up the SSA’s personal web site, which explains that since September 2015 the company has mechanically stopped profit funds when anyone reaches the age of 115.
Nevertheless, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims had been figures from “the Social Safety database” to X, writing that “the numbers of individuals in every age bucket with the demise area set to FALSE!”
The figures steered that over 10 thousands and thousands folks aged over 120 had been amassing advantages.
“Possibly Twilight is actual and there are lots of vampires amassing Social Safety,” Musk wrote.
The database Musk took the screenshot from listed virtually 400 million folks, which is greater than 5 instances the variety of folks receiving advantages in 2024, in keeping with the SSA’s own website. It’s additionally considerably greater than the complete US inhabitants.
The truth that the Social Safety system accommodates thousands and thousands of entries from people who find themselves lifeless is probably going distinct from a possible COBOL-caused error, and in addition not information. A report written by the SSA’s inspector general in 2023 discovered that 98 p.c of these aged 100 or older within the Social Safety databases are usually not in receipt of any advantages. The report added that the database wouldn’t be up to date as a result of it could value an excessive amount of cash to take action.
