Are People Over 100 Receiving Social Security Benefits? What We Know

Elon Musk, Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head, has said millions of Americans are receiving Social Security benefits past age 100, uncovering what could amount to massive amounts of retirement benefit fraud.

The world's richest man called the 20 million people receiving Social Security past age 100 "the biggest fraud in history," on X, formerly Twitter.

Why It Matters

The Social Security Administration currently faces an insolvency crisis, with funds for full retirement benefits set to run out by the mid 2030s.

At this point, Americans would only receive benefits for roughly 80 percent of what they are owed and could struggle to afford retirement at all.

What to Know

Musk wrote about the numbers of 100-year-olds and up still receiving Social Security on Sunday.

"According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!" Musk posted on his X platform late Sunday, alongside a chart of ages going from zero to 369 years old.

"Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security... There are FAR more 'eligible' social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history."

A 2023 audit of Social Security revealed that 18.9 million people in the Social Security database were listed as 100 years or older. This is compared to Census Bureau data, which found only 86,000 people in the U.S. were living past the age of 100.

However, the vast majority of those listed in the database were not still receiving monthly checks, with 18.4 million who had not earned benefits for 50 years and likely deemed dead. Only 44,000 were still earning checks, with just 13 of those listed as age 112 or older.

Newsweek reached out to Musk for comment on the audits via email.

The DOGE has been pursuing cuts to many programs across the federal government, with a specific focus on uncovering fraud and waste, including in Social Security.

"If money is spent badly, if your taxpayer dollars are not spent in a sensible and frugal manner, then that's not okay. Your tax dollars need to be spent wisely on the things that matter to the people," Musk said at the White House last week. "It's just common sense. It's not draconian or radical. I think it's really just saying let's look at each of the expenditures and say, is this actually in the best interest of the people, and if it is, it's approved, if it's not, we should think about it."

What People Are Saying

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "Social Security fraud certainly exists, but the claims it's rampant because a database had many recipients who were supposedly aged at well over 100 years old isn't evidence it's widespread. More than anything, the findings should alert the new administration to how antiquated many of the databases of government agencies are that normally produce errors such as these. The mission to uncover government waste is a valid one, but it needs to be assessed based on how many of these agencies currently operate, their rules and procedures, and how those can be fine-tuned moving forward to prevent additional problems."

Michael Ryan, a finance expert and the founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek: "Only about 44,000 of these were actually linked to payments. We're talking about database quirks here, not grand theft."

Kevin Thompson, a finance expert and the founder and CEO 0f 9i Capital Group, told Newsweek: "Are there people collecting social security over 100 years of age, the answer is incontrovertibly yes. But not at all to the extent Musk implies. This is what happens when people wade into topics they don't fully understand. He's confusing the fact that thousands of Social Security numbers exist for people over 100 with them actually collecting benefits. Two very different things."

What Happens Next

Only around 1 percent of all total Social Security payments were found to be improper payments from 2015 and 2022, with most of those payments being administrative errors that are eventually corrected, Ryan said.

"This kind of fearmongering about fraud isn't just wrong. It's flat out dangerous. We're talking about a program that 67 million Americans rely on for retirement, disability, or survivor benefits. Real people, real lives," Ryan said.

"If someone finds actual fraud, there's a system for that. It's called law enforcement. We don't need Twitter proclamations. We need evidence-based investigations through proper channels."

As Social Security faces a funding crisis, Thompson said that issue will matter more than the minimal fraud it faces today.

"The bigger conversation needs to be about protecting the system from legislative raids, whether that's reducing taxation on benefits, eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), or new proposals like extending benefits to child-rearers for up to six years," Thompson said. "Those are the real policy discussions that will impact the long-term sustainability of Social Security."