You’re Dead When SSA Says You’re Dead—Even if You Are Not!

We have all heard stories about SSA determining that a beneficiary is dead, when the beneficiary isn’t. Proving you are very much alive has to be a fun experience (just joking in case anyone from SSA is reading this blog). Usually the stories about someone being “SSA-dead” is limited to a person. The Washington Post recently ran a story about a group of beneficiaries being declared dead by SSA. Dead or alive? Social Security misclassified some explains “Social Security officials have discovered 90 cases in their records where the living were listed as deceased.  That’s 90 “as of today,” Mark Hinkle, an SSA spokesman, said late Thursday. “We are not yet sure how many were in error.” The 90 are from a group of 19,000 cases.” Note that means more of the 19,000 may be “SSA-dead”.

There is some humor in all of this (the 90 of you declared SSA-dead, my sympathies (no pun intended folks–sympathies for the hassle) and really I’m not making light of your situation). “Ironically, the erroneous cases are from pilot projects in Virginia, North Dakota and South Dakota, designed “to enhance the quality of our death records,” Hinkle said. … Clearly, there is more work to be done on that point.”

Clearly this is no laughing matter if you are one of those declared dead-there are significant financial implications, including a loss of benefits. Plus other federal agencies get death info from SSA, so the impact is more widespread than just SSA. SSA is on it, and as for those other folks who may be SSA-dead and not know it, “SSA plans to send letters to the 19,000 people potentially affected with information on how to find out if the agency thinks they are dead and how to correct the record if that’s the case.”

I’m just saying, if you live in VA., ND or SD and get a letter from SSA in your mailbox, you may want to sit down before you open it…