How Old Are You? No really, How Old Are You?

I thought it fitting to end the week with a recent story from the New York Times.  You know that old saying  that goes something like this “you are only as old as you feel”? Well according to Social Security, a whole bunch of us are a lot older than we are…. The A.P. ran an article on March 16, Flawed Social Security data say 6.5M in US reach age 112. The article notes that the reality is only about 42 people in the world are that old. So what about the other 6.4+ million others?  According to the article, lack of death certificates can be a partial explanation.

But Social Security does not have death records for millions of these people, with the oldest born in 1869, according to a report by the agency’s inspector general.

Only 13 of the people are still getting Social Security benefits, the report said. But for others, their Social Security numbers are still active, so a number could be used to report wages, open bank accounts, obtain credit cards or claim fraudulent tax refunds.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs held a hearing on  SSA and death records on March 16, 2015. The solution is a bit more complicated than you might think, according to the article. Think about paper records and how time consuming it is to convert them to electronic records.  Social Security is concerned about whether 6.5 million people are alive or not, but  “the inspector general’s report did not verify that any of the 6.5 million people are actually dead. Instead, the report assumed they are dead because of their advanced age.” An SSA official was quoted as saying “our focus right now is to make sure our data is as accurate and complete as it can be for our current program purpose,… Right now, we’re focused on making sure we’re paying beneficiaries properly, and that’s how we’re investing our resources at this time.”