So the weekend “news” included the claim that 150 year olds are fraudulently receiving Social Security checks. Now, I could bore you with a half dozen sources debunking that claim. Or we can look at it logically. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Someone 150 today would have been born in 1874 or 1875. Social security was passed into law in 1935 and regular monthly benefits began in 1940, when our hypothetical super-centenarian was already 65 years old! Today their kids would be well over 100 themselves, their grandchildren octogenarians or older, and their great grandchildren old enough to legitimately receive Social Security checks of their own. So we’re talking about a three to five generation grift, if true. That’s a lot of work.
Without thinking very hard I can think of three simpler and more likely explanations. First, someone got a digit of the birth year wrong. Someone born in 1974 or 1975 is just 50 years old, and might well be receiving Social Security as survivor benefits or disability benefits.
Second, it’s possible — less likely but possible — that a funeral home got a digit of a social security number wrong when reporting some decades ago and therefore mistakenly didn’t report someone as dead. Checks continue to go out, uncashed.
Oh, and a third and final explanation? Mr. Musk may have made the whole thing up to get you mad. After all, Republicans have been aching for excuses to slash or eliminate Social Security for a long time.