Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0told Congress on Tuesday (March 4) that the administration has been forking out funds on a mass scale of waste to millions of people over 140 years of age.<\/p>\n The 78-year-old\u00a0President<\/a>\u00a0said: “We\u2019re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors.”<\/p>\n He went on to allege that millions of unfeasibly old residents were collecting\u00a0checks<\/a>\u00a0based on Social Security Administration (SSA) data.<\/p>\n The President pointed the blame at the SSA for allegedly wasting funds (Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n This includes:<\/p>\n Trump said 130,000 citizens older than 160 years old and several hundreds of people older than 220 were also pocketing social security benefits – and even one singular person ‘listed at 360 years of age.’<\/p>\n However, according to a\u00a0factcheck<\/a>\u00a0by NBC News, while the SSA database does apparently have issues in its dataset with real records on the impossibly ancient, it doesn’t mean they are getting paid.<\/p>\n The SSA addressed the concerns of its aged records this week, writing in a\u00a0statement<\/a>: “The data reported in the media represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record.”<\/p>\n It added: “While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records.”<\/p>\n Since the issue was highlighted by the POTUS, SSA claims it has made ‘significant progress in identifying and correcting beneficiary records of people 100 years old or older.’<\/p>\n Trump said ‘millions’ of the impossibly old have been banking benefits (Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n The news comes as inspectors have long identified its record-keeping as an issue, but the SSA has argued updating outdated records is costly and unnecessary, according to the news outlet.<\/p>\n Part of the issue comes from its COBOL programming language,\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0NewsNation, which doesn’t use a reliable format for dates which means entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a random reference point more than 150 years ago.<\/p>\n Inspection reports in March 2023 and July 2024 further uncovered the agency had failed to set up a system that would accurately log death dates.<\/p>\n Instead of forking out the estimated $9 million to amend the database, the agency automatically stops payments to anyone over the age of 115.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/images.ladbible.com\/resize?type=webp&quality=70&width=3840&fit=contain&gravity=auto&url=https:\/\/images.ladbiblegroup.com\/v3\/assets\/blt949ea8e16e463049\/blt93bd7d6f5899ac57\/67c9b2bc3be2526ce239fe02\/donald_trump_social_security_claim_old_citizens.jpg\")
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