According to a recent CNN article, the Social Security Office still has active (that is, not official deceased) numbers and records for 6.5 million Americans age 112 or older. There are only 35 total people living worldwide who are that age.
The problem?
These, so called, zombie social security numbers could be used, along with a fake birth certificate (or a lot of makeup) to create fraudulent IDs, credit cards, bank accounts, you name it. And, since the numbers are active, but not being used, no one will even be around to complain that accounts are being opened in their name.
The truly funny part about this is that the fix is so difficult, brought to you by the people who do bureaucracy best. If you aren’t a government employee, the (partial) fix is as easy as writing a small computer program. There are apparently 12 people that age still actively drawing Social Security benefits. If the total number of 112-year olds is even remotely accurate, than less than 20 people world-wide could still be alive, and counting on having that valid Social Security number. In other words, expiring every one of the 6.5 million numbers (except the 12 still collecting benefits, of course) would solve the problem in one fail swoop. If mistakes were made, it’s highly unlikely that those remaining 112-year olds that slipped through the crack (all 20 or so of them) would overwhelm the system to such a degree that any actual problems would occur.
Of course, that’s not the way the government works. There is no such thing as an “expired” number. It would take an act of Congress (and or a new promulgated rule, I don’t know for sure) to create such a designation. So, the only way to end a number is for it to marked as deceased. But, the SSA can’t just arbitrarily mark people as deceased, there are rules and procedures after all. Which means the only way for a death to be counted is for a hard copy death certificate to be sent, and verified, to the SSA. The vast majority of these people died long ago and no one is out there collecting death certificates for all of these 6.5 million folks, which means their numbers will never be expired.
In true Washington fashion, this is a punch-line news story for now. It will be again in a few years. Eventually, it will either be so ridiculous, or the use of those numbers will become so widespread that someone will actually HAVE to do something. Then, and only then, will anything come of the hand wringing about all those dead people out there with active, valid Social Security Numbers.