Exclusive: Social Security Admin’s Lee Dudek Calls Sweep of 11M Numbers over 120 Years Old an ‘Important Anti-Fraud Measure’Katherine Hamilton 29 Apr 2025
The Trump administration is doing a massive sweep of Social Security Numbers to mark as “deceased” those who are 120 years old and above — a move it says is part of its greater mission to root out waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Thursday that the Social Security Administration (SSA) over the last seven weeks as marked 11 million number holders listed over the age of 120 as “deceased.” The agency is going through another 1.4 million numbers and expects to complete its project by May 3, a White House official told Breitbart News.
The cleanup effort comes as Democrats seize on the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline the agency, instead painting Republicans as a threat to the program and its retired and elderly beneficiaries.
Left-wing outlets have been reporting cases of people who are still alive accidentally having their Social Security Numbers moved to the Ineligible Master File (previously known as “Death Master File”), creating a headache for Social Security offices and the individuals who must prove they are still alive to go through reinstatement. These outlets have additionally decried the cancellation of 6,300 Social Security Numbers quietly given to illegal immigrants in prior administration, including to those with criminal records, terrorist affiliations, or canceled visas. Democrats are framing the Trump administration’s efforts as chaotic and not-to-be trusted — an extension of their upset with DOGE’s overall work slashing billions government-wide in federal spending.
https://twitter.com/DOGE/status/1915523635789611170Ultimately, the agency has come up with a detailed system to handle processing the numbers of those who are “implausibly old,” Acting Commissioner of Social Security Lee Dudek told Breitbart News.
“Closing the records of individuals who are implausibly old to still be alive is an important anti-fraud measure. Criminals may use those individuals’ information to commit fraud. As we close the records, we have safeguards in place to ensure that we do not adversely affect individuals who are still alive,” Dudek said.
“No instances have arisen to date where an implausibly old individual whose record we closed actually contacted the agency for reinstatement. We have a process in place to reinstate individuals in our records if we ever make an error,” he clarified.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/04/29/exclusive-social-security-admins-lee-dudek-calls-sweep-of-11m-numbers-over-120-years-old-an-important-anti-fraud-measure/
