So the bromance between The Donald and Elon Musk has come to a spectacular public end, but regardless of whether they ever reconcile, both men owe the American people a concise and credible explanation of the true state of the Social Security system.
That is NOT a reference only to the apparent discrepancies between the horrifying numbers the two have used to convey the alleged depth of waste and fraud afflicting Social Security. There are two even more fundamental issues at stake here.
By way of context, though, here are the differing claims Trump and Musk have advanced in recent months concerning the numbers of Social Security benefit recipients who appear to be decades beyond the longest known lifespans since the program's inception.
As OpenTheBooks explains on Substack:
"In his March address to a joint session of Congress, though, President Trump rattled off amounts of individuals who are in the Social Security database but aged over 100 years old. It amounted to 20.6 million individuals.
“'But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty,' Trump said.
"Elon Musk and DOGE later announced they’d identified -- and cancelled -- 3.2 million obsolete Social Security numbers for people over 120 years old. They later updated that amount to 7 million.
"Those broadly conflicting figures leave the door wide open to confusion and worry from Americans and criticism from a media struggling to verify DOGE claims in real time. More careful, consistent communications from across the administration could mitigate at least some of this risk."
Those numbers may actually not be as far apart as they appear at first glance to be, and indeed, in the same column, OpenTheBooks shows how the Trump and Musk/DOGE figures appear to be reconcilable.
But here are the two HUGE issues raised by this controversy that ought to be on top of the ToDo list for everybody concerned. First, as OpenTheBooks discloses, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is playing games with the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):
"On January 14, 2025, Open the Books asked SSA for Social Security payment disbursements in fiscal year 2024 by age and state, for all 50 states. Nearly three months later, on April 5, we received a response, or rather, a non-response: SSA has no records responsive to our request.
"The agency directed us to open-source data available on its website, which breaks down the number of SSA recipients by seemingly arbitrary age groups, like 62-64 and 90-99. There is a '100 or older' category, of which there are 73,815 beneficiaries, but that is as granular as the data gets. There is no information on how many Social Security numbers exist in general, broken down by age." (emphases added by author)
Did you catch that? The SSA doesn't have records for how much the agency dispersed to recipients by age and state for all 50 states? If it actually doesn't have such records, then something is terribly wrong in SSA. The far more likely answer is, of course SSA has such records, but the agency is using a FOIA disclosure exemption to avoid providing the requested data.
And what about that admission the government does not know how many Social Security numbers there are! The Social Security number is the golden key that unlocks, not just Social Security benefits, but potentially for every other federal entitlement program. And who issues Social Security numbers? The SSA.
They have no idea how many Social Security numbers they have given to applicants by age? If that's true, the depth of corruption in all federal entitlement spending may well be much worse than has even been claimed by DOGE investigators.
And that brings us to the second and most serious issue raised by the apparent differences in the Trump and Musk/DOGE claims. By law, SSA must maintain up-to-date records for how much it sends to each recipient over the entire time benefits are paid.
This is why if you are a Social Security benefit recipient, the SSA provides you with an account statement that details all of your contributions into the system and all of the checks paid out to you.
How many such accounts does SSA presently maintain? How long has each account been in existence, what is the present age of the recipient, and how much in total has each recipient received in benefits? How many such accounts have been closed due to death notices, and how much did each receive in benefits?
See where this is going? If SSA is doing its job, the agency must be able to produce data to answer all such questions on request. If it can do so, then aligning the Trump and Musk/DOGE figures should not be a challenge. If SSA cannot do so, then we've got far worse problems than we know. And not just with SSA.
The Social Security issue is just one of many about which the establishment media will not be honest with you. But we will. Join PJ Media VIP and get full access to all of our content. Act now with code FIGHT for a massive 60% discount.