DOGE Makes Outrageous Discovery About Number Of ACTIVE Social Security Numbers...At what point can we officially rule out innocent explanations?
(clashdaily.com)
Effects Each US Tax Payer!
The last thing I want to do is discredit DOGE. However, I want to point out a possible explanation for some of these wild discrepancies in SS Data.
I was born in 1958. Mom got me a SS #. I started filing tax returns and withholding when I started working for my Dad when I was 17.
Fast forward to about 2004. I was getting a regular letter from SS telling me the status of my account. The numbers jived. I didn't worry. However, when I went to look at my data online, I was blocked. I called SS. They said I had some wrong data in my account, and I would have to go into an office to get it straightened out. I was working full time at that point and couldn't waste a day going over there, so I put it off.
Fast forward again to 2021. I had just gotten laid off. A few weeks later, I found out I had cancer. I had to get things straight in a hurry. If I died without getting this fixed, it might hold up my wife's survivor benefits. 2 days before I went into surgery, I staggered into the SS office with my birth certificate, my SS card and a few other docs. In 2 hours, I was home. However, I found out a good part of what they had on me was wrong. Wrong birth county, wrong birth date, wrong. . . you name it.
I asked the clerk how this could have been. He said it was obviously a transcription error when they computerized in the early 70s. Having spent 40+ years in IT and having gone through multiple conversions from paper systems in my early years, I found it completely believable. I did one conversion where the accepted error rate was 3%-- 3 keystrokes in 100. This was a machine-reading project, where optical readers replaced key punch operators. Somebody thought it was easier and cheaper to fix the mistakes later. Yikes. My guess is, back in the early 70s, they were double-punching cards. That is, two people punched the same decks and then the differences spit out and errors were corrected. Error rates might have been lower, but still there would have been plenty of errata.
My point in this is that SS's data may still have a lot of transposition errors from the 70s.
BTW: Happy ending. I had the surgery. I retired. I had my first benefit check before chemo started. I'm going on 2.5 years cancer free.
Moral: Get on SS.Gov and find out what they have on you. If you can't get on, it's a sign your data is in error. Get it straight.
They just have to do this 20 million times. You’re whats called an outlier.
Were checks sent out and if so to WHO
Seems easy enough, it’s just a racket.. it flows back to the overlords.
"Get on SS.Gov and find out what they have on you. If you can't get on, it's a sign your data is in error. Get it straight."
...very good advice...