Millions of Dollars in Stimulus Checks Sent to Dead People
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16676)
Boston, Massachusetts
May 15, 2009 11:49am CST
The latest news confirms that the Social Security Administration has issued stimulus checks to a number of deceased Americans, because, they say, the government didn't know they were dead.
I can understand how SSA might go on automatically issuing payments to people until they get notification of their demise, and possibly some SS fraud is accomplished this way. But some of the dead who received checks this month were never a part of the Social Security system, never applied and never received benefits. One case highlighted in the news is of an American citizen who went to Italy in 1933 and lived there until his death. Not only did he not receive SS benefits, his death was 34 years ago!!! They not only can't keep track of immigration, they can't even keep track of who left the country.
There's not going to be much stimulus to the economy if money is going out to dead people.
Has Government just gotten so big that it can only make big mistakes?
2 people like this
2 responses
@kykidd (6812)
• United States
18 May 09
Hmmm, I had not heard this yet. That is so surprising. I can imagine that the media is eating this up. And I suppose if asked, our president would say that he had not heard about it. Just like he said he did not hear about the Tea Parties that were thrown back in April. It is really scary that our system can really be that disturbed.
Wouldn't you think they would have used a database from the people who are currently receiving SS and just send them the checks? It seems illogical that they would use a different list than that.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
18 May 09
I think they must have used a database of social security numbers and just sent checks to anyone whose date of birth was a certain date or before, to determine who was eligible. At the same time they never checked to see if they had applied for retirement benefits. They also sent checks to those receiving SSDI, so that database would show current recipients. Not sure why they didn't use a recipient database for the retirement benefits.
@marcyyyy (517)
• United States
18 May 09
That's not very good news...I'm hoping that SSA has money enough for the live people, and I'm thinking about when I'm old enough for social security! (I hope I am alive when I'm old enough, but maybe if I'm not, I'll get a check anyhow...) It seems the larger our population, the more these mistakes are gonna happen.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
18 May 09
None of us can know if there will be any money left in Social Security by the time we reach retirement age. I once heard that if you took what you pay in Social Security tax and started investing it when you are 23 years old, that you would be a millionaire by retirement. Obviously, no one is getting millions from Social Security. The system is bound to break down.
