The discrepancy in the younger ages needs to be looked into as well. When I used US census estimates for 2023 as a proxy for the current number, the 20-29 group has 43,829,532 people. Musk's Social Security value is 47,995,478, a difference of 4,165,996. We did NOT have that many people in those birth years die and not have their deaths recorded. Something else is going on.
I have gotten some background info on some of the disparities, coming from historical practice.
As actuaries know, understanding the processes by which the data were created are a huge part of understanding why the data look the way they do. The "COBOL defaults to 1875" was complete bullshit, and there is a messier explanation ... but it makes a lot more sense, when you realize how people are. And it explains what we're seeing much better. I'm trying to get more public sources to show this is what really happened.
There are two bits to look at:
- why are there tens of millions more SSNs issued than there should be (and the crazy age distribution)
- what are the payments made, and how much are improper/fraudulent?
I will be returning to both items. These aren't the same questions.
My sister's mother-in-law died, and they found at least 4 dates of birth she had used. She did NOT want anyone to know her true age. Even her drivers license had the wrong DOB (YOB). I can only imagine the problem her SSA bureaucrat came across - the drivers license says one date, her marriage license has another, both of which are different than the date she used when originally applying for a SSN. It took quite awhile to figure out what the real date was. And then the life insurance death benefit was adjusted and paid out. SSA did not adjust anything, since she was already dead. Was that fraud? She certainly knew better, but it probably was just vanity.
Having old deceased people in key tables makes perfect sense from a systems development standpoint, would be risky to completely remove people from a master database, especially in a system of record. For example, data changes can be made in error needing reversal or the agency has historical reporting uses for retaining it, or the actual benefit determination involves linked data from other sources.
I've followed Elon for his whole career and I thought he had more systems development experience until I saw that Fox news piece last year. Very naive assumptions he should know better. And the young DOGE analysts have seen few non-trivial systems and none that have evolved over decades inside our agencies.
The discrepancy in the younger ages needs to be looked into as well. When I used US census estimates for 2023 as a proxy for the current number, the 20-29 group has 43,829,532 people. Musk's Social Security value is 47,995,478, a difference of 4,165,996. We did NOT have that many people in those birth years die and not have their deaths recorded. Something else is going on.
I have gotten some background info on some of the disparities, coming from historical practice.
As actuaries know, understanding the processes by which the data were created are a huge part of understanding why the data look the way they do. The "COBOL defaults to 1875" was complete bullshit, and there is a messier explanation ... but it makes a lot more sense, when you realize how people are. And it explains what we're seeing much better. I'm trying to get more public sources to show this is what really happened.
There are two bits to look at:
- why are there tens of millions more SSNs issued than there should be (and the crazy age distribution)
- what are the payments made, and how much are improper/fraudulent?
I will be returning to both items. These aren't the same questions.
My sister's mother-in-law died, and they found at least 4 dates of birth she had used. She did NOT want anyone to know her true age. Even her drivers license had the wrong DOB (YOB). I can only imagine the problem her SSA bureaucrat came across - the drivers license says one date, her marriage license has another, both of which are different than the date she used when originally applying for a SSN. It took quite awhile to figure out what the real date was. And then the life insurance death benefit was adjusted and paid out. SSA did not adjust anything, since she was already dead. Was that fraud? She certainly knew better, but it probably was just vanity.
Oh lord, all the people (not only women) who changed their ages over vanity.
My MIL liked joking about being younger than her son, and we all had the jokes about being 29 forever.
But some people took the "joke" a bit too far.
Having old deceased people in key tables makes perfect sense from a systems development standpoint, would be risky to completely remove people from a master database, especially in a system of record. For example, data changes can be made in error needing reversal or the agency has historical reporting uses for retaining it, or the actual benefit determination involves linked data from other sources.
I've followed Elon for his whole career and I thought he had more systems development experience until I saw that Fox news piece last year. Very naive assumptions he should know better. And the young DOGE analysts have seen few non-trivial systems and none that have evolved over decades inside our agencies.
With all this discussion of database cleanup or better yet, no cleanup, I remind all of state voting rolls.
We shall see soon enough if the improper payments are on the order of 1% or something much worse...