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Nope. There are no 150-year-olds on Social Security. It's COBOL! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-14
Elon Musk claimed that his team found 150-year-old people collecting Social Security! He implied there were dead people being sent benefits, with checks cashed by someone else.
But no—the people getting paid are very much alive. They are collecting their own benefits. They’re not committing fraud. They’re just not 150 years old, of course.
Reports say that his group at DOGE is made up of fairly young people. What those kids don’t realize is that Social Security uses VERY OLD computers. They’re programmed with an old version of the programming language COBOL.
A bit of history. On May 20, 1875 a bunch of countries got together to create the International Bureau of Weight and Measures which established uniform standards of mass and length. Later on, the Bureau established rules for dates as well. The dates standard used a starting date of May 20 1875 to honor the creation of the Bureau.
Old versions of COBOL use that date as a baseline. Social Security’s computers use that old version. Dates are stored as the number of days AFTER May 20 1875.
So what happens if Social Security doesn’t know a birthdate? That field is empty in its records. Thus that person appears to have a birthday of May 20 1875—about 150 years ago.
That’s why the crack team of youngsters Musk uses found 150-year-old people in Social Security getting benefits. It’s all really as simple—and as stupid—as that.
You’d think that those bright MAGAheads would notice that ALL those 150 year olds have THE SAME BIRTHDAY: May 20, 1875.
But they didn’t. Genius Elon Musk didn’t. And, of course, STABLE GENIUS Donald Trump didn’t either.
Sigh.
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