Through some indecipherable mental process, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have decided that there are thousands of dead people collecting Social Security benefits, and that they need to be stricken from the system.

Well, if they are really and truly dead, then I whole-heartedly agree. And the people who have been collecting the payments in their place must legally be dealt with. That is a legitimate means of reducing wasteful government spending.

But is it true? Are there really thousands of them? Trump said in Florida last month that “There is one person on Social Security who is 360 years old.” [Nick Watt and Matthew J. Friedman, CNN, March 21, 2025.]

Well, that statement stretches credulity to the breaking point. If that individual — or someone in his or her name — has been collecting benefits for nearly 300 years, I’d like to know how and from whom, since not only has Social Security only been in effect since 1935 . . . but the United States itself is less than 250 years old! (I’d also like to know the secret of that person’s longevity, but that’s a whole other issue.)

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Ned Johnson of Seattle, Washington, is a slightly different case. I don’t believe anyone is accusing him of having committed 300 years of fraud. But the 82-year-old gentleman was declared dead last month by the Social Security Administration (SSA); and he and his wife believe it’s due to a screw-up by one or more of Musk’s pre-pubescent DOGE staffers working inside the SSA — six of whom are said to be involved specifically with death data.

And the Johnsons have a point. Five days after the DOGE team began analyzing “improper payments” and “the death master file” on February 13th of this year, Ned Johnson was declared true and duly deceased. [Id.]

Together with his wife Pamela, Ned has been on a quest to prove his existence ever since. Although Pamela jokes that “There’s been a lot of gallows humor,” she adds that the “rather curious coincidence” has raised “a lot of unanswered questions,” and says that she thinks “maybe we’ll never know.” [Id.]

Their first inkling that something was wrong arrived in the form of an electronic letter from their bank, addressed to Pamela, on February 18th. It began:

“We offer our sincerest condolences. I understand this is a difficult time.” [Id.]

Pamela said that “[i]t was a little weird. Because he was sitting next to me drinking coffee.” [Id.]

The SSA had notified the bank of Ned’s “passing,” and money had been removed from their account equal to monthly payments they had received since November 23, 2024 — the date of his alleged demise. And the bank complied, because they had supposedly received some sort of form from a hospital in addition to the SSA notification. Neither the bank nor the SSA have been able to enlighten the Johnsons as to where that form came from, nor have they shown it to them.

Ned was told by his bank that “We have no way of communicating with Social Security. It comes electronically to us. We automatically react to it.” [Id.]

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Now, we all know that, in this electronic world, these things happen from time to time. Within the SSA alone, more than three million deaths are reported annually. But in a news release issued after Ned Johnson went public with his problem, the agency stated:

“Less than one-third of 1 percent are erroneously reported deaths that need to be corrected.“

Still, even that tiny percentage amounts to about 9,000 errors each year, leaving 9,000 people scrambling to prove they’re still alive and trying to retrieve their money . . . money that (contrary to anything Elon Musk may claim about a so-called Ponzi scheme) those people have paid into Social Security out of their salaries over a lifetime of honest, productive work. And now they depend on it for their very survival.

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Fortunately, Ned and Pamela were physically and mentally capable of taking steps — including going public in The Seattle Times — to rectify their situation fairly quickly. They did retrieve their wrongfully snatched benefits; but they also had to deal with the reinstatement of their Medicare and other health insurance, which had automatically been cancelled. And Ned worries whether he might have problems in the future with regard to credit card and passport renewals. As he says, “Your credit status goes to zero as soon as you’re declared deceased in the Social Security system.” [Id.]

Yes, these things happen. But they always seem to happen to the most vulnerable people . . . the ones least equipped to fight “the system” . . . and the very people now being targeted by the world’s newest, most notorious secret society: DOGE.

They call themselves the Department of Government Efficiency; but perhaps they should more appropriately be named the “Department of Government Executions.”

That way, they could keep the acronym and not have to change the logos on their tee shirts.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/22/25