Big Government Stupidity…Millions of Social Security Dollars Paid to the Deceased

Some of the more interesting headlines coming from the recent DOGE efforts concern Social Security money paid out to a vast amount of the population who, as it turns out, are dead. The majority of the headlines can be described in one of two ways. First, there are headlines that describe the millions of fraudulent Social Security payments as an egregious example of government waste and mismanagement. On the other hand, there are many more headlines that treat these same payments as nothing really important; it’s just the cost of administering a large social safety program like Social Security.

To understand the problem it is necessary to get into the data and to get the correct data, it is necessary to match the rolls of those receiving benefits with the lists of the deceased from the states. Here are some of the facts from a 2021 State of California ‘matching’ audit, as reported in a Bloomberg.com article entitled “The Truth About Social Security and Dead People” and dated February 20 earlier this year:

• 245 dead people whose children or spouses or others with access to their bank accounts were still receiving their benefits, which the Social Security Administration subsequently canceled.

• 52 beneficiaries “who appear to be deceased” that the SSA was still looking into.

• 438,460 people who were listed as dead by California and not Social Security but weren’t receiving Social Security benefits.

• 89 people who were listed as dead in California records but were still alive, although 12 of them died while the SSA was checking into their cases.¹

As a result of the audit, the California Inspector General concluded “that $21.3 million had been paid out in error to the 245 dead people, and an additional $8.3 million to the 52 possibly dead ones.” The author of the Bloomberg article goes on to state that there appear to have been 38 “matching audits” done in other states since 2014 and he was added up the numbers:

• 44,152 dead or possibly dead people who were receiving benefits or had received them after death.

• $875 million in improper or possibly improper Social Security payments.

• 834,612 dead or possibly dead people who weren’t listed as such in the “Numident” file, but according to SSA records weren’t receiving benefits. The “Numident” file is the Social Security Administration’s demographic database related to individuals’ Social Security numbers.

• 726 people who were listed somewhere as dead but were in fact alive.²

In other words, since 2014 and according to these records, a little less than a billion dollars in Social Security benefits have been paid out to the deceased in those states that have conducted audits. To you and me, a billion dollars seems like a significantly large amount of our tax dollars misspent. It is especially significant when you consider that these dollars came from a social security fund intended to pay your benefits and mine…and…it is forecast to become insolvent according to one estimate, in as soon as 2031 (insert a link here to the Social Security Rescue Podcast).¹

The Bloomberg article’s author makes a couple more interesting comments that the data is incomplete because 23 states haven’t done these matching audits and the almost a billion dollars wasted, since annually “…Social Security pays out more than $1.3 trillion in benefits, it doesn’t seem very big.” The irony of dismissive comments like this seems to be lost on the proponents of ‘Big Government’ and the way our political leaders have conducted business over many years.

The US government has several departments that pay out benefits to citizens. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Veterans Affairs which administer programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, and housing assistance. It is probably wise to assume that the same neglect to match death records to benefits is rampant in the administrations of these government bodies. Indeed, in some states, incredible amounts of tax dollars have been paid out to non-citizens. In California alone, the state has paid out annually, $8.5 Billion of its tax dollars for healthcare provided to illegal aliens.²

We here at I Vote My Vote are very concerned. To us, a billion dollars misspent, plus the uncounted billions misspent elsewhere in government, DOES seem very big. We urge President Trump and DOGE to keep identifying where the government has stupidly failed to compare the states’ lists of the deceased with those still on the Social Security benefits rolls. It’s way beyond time to put a stop to our country’s rapid descent to bankruptcy.

1. Fox, J. (2025). The Truth About Social Security and Dead People. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-24/the-truth-about-social-security-and-dead-people

2. Ibid.

3. Amure, T. (2025). What the Trump Administration Could Mean for Social Security Insolvency. Yahoo!Finance. Retrieved from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-could-mean-social-120201677.html

4. Hwang, K. and Ibarra, A. (2025). Newsom proposes to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented immigrants. Calmatters.org. Retrieved from https://calmatters.org/health/2025/05/newsom-freeze-medi-cal-undocumented-immigrants/