Social Security reminds workers about ‘resurrecting’ people wrongly declared dead

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — Spurred by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the Social Security Administration is combing through its databases to check whether beneficiaries are alive or dead. It has already added dates of death to millions of people’s records, focusing on those who are implausibly old.

The problem: Some people who have recently been declared dead are actually alive, forcing them to go to Social Security offices to be “resurrected” and stop the financial havoc that such a mistake can have on their lives.

What’s more, the effort has prompted the agency to take what several workers described as an unusual step of reminding some employees about what to do if they encounter a not-really-dead person.

Some managers received an email to remind their staff that “death correction cases” should be addressed that same day and don’t need to have appointments, unlike most people who need help. The agency also sent an email about dates of death being posted to 3.5 million records, with guidance on whom to report erroneous death listings.

While Social Security has mistakenly declared people dead in the past, it’s typically a pretty rare occurrence. Of the more than 3 million deaths reported to the agency annually, less than one-third of 1% are erroneous and need to be corrected, Social Security said in a news release in March. The number of erroneous deaths reported so far this year is about the same as comparable time periods for the prior two years, an agency spokesperson told CNN.

Cleaning up Social Security’s death records in an effort to thwart fraud is a focus of the DOGE representatives embedded at the agency. Musk and President Donald Trump have implied without evidence that the agency is paying benefits to millions of implausibly old people.

DOGE announced on X in late March that about 10 million people over the age of 120 have been marked as deceased, with another roughly 2 million to go. In addition, the team has been tasked with an “Are You Alive” project to ascertain whether other folks should be listed as dead, according to court documents. (DOGE’s access to agency databases has been put on hold by the courts.)

At the same time, some Social Security staffers are seeing more people coming in to be resurrected. Some are senior citizens but are too young to raise doubts about their being alive.

John Reid III of Locust Grove, Georgia, is one of them. The retired US postal worker was shocked to receive a letter from his Medicare prescription drug insurer in April offering condolences to his family, followed by a letter from Social Security inquiring about next of kin and a notice from American Express asking that his executor contact the company to settle the account. His wife, Vivian, received a mailing from the Internal Revenue Service stating she had more time to complete their tax returns.

Reid, 73, has had to make three trips to his local Social Security office, which is 30 miles away, armed with his passport, driver’s license and other identification to prove he’s actually alive and try to get his April payment. He’s also had to visit his bank four times and spend hours on the phone with his health insurer, American Express and the federal Office of Personnel Management since he also didn’t receive his government pension payment for May.

Social Security has told Reid that his record has been fixed but hasn’t explained why he was declared dead. However, two managers from his local office called him this week to apologize and say they are opening an investigation into the mistake.

Still, he has yet to receive the $6,500 he’s owned in Social Security and pension payments, forcing the couple to live off credit cards and savings, which are quickly dwindling. Adding insult to injury, Social Security last week sent him a letter offering a year of free credit monitoring.

Reid has been told he’ll receive his April Social Security check in mid-May, but he said he won’t believe it until the money hits his bank account. He was supposed to receive his pension payment last week, but it has yet to arrive.

“I have lost all faith in the federal government at his juncture,” said Reid, noting that he’s also lost a lot of sleep over this issue. “It’s nerve-wracking. You’re just kind of helpless.”

Ned Johnson of Seattle, who was declared dead in February, also had to follow a similar path to be brought back to life in the agency’s records. He spent nearly eight hours waiting at a Social Security office and eventually had his benefits restored.

Also showing up at Social Security offices are immigrants who are correcting their records after having been declared dead by the Department of Homeland Security, several employees told CNN. DHS requested that Social Security enter more than 6,000 names of immigrants into its database used to track dead people in hopes that they’ll leave the US, CNN reported last month.

“They’re killing people off in our system, not knowing if they are alive or dead,” Chris Delaney, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3343, which represents workers in 14 field offices in upstate New York, said of DOGE’s efforts. “That’s pretty disturbing.”

A staffer in the Social Security office in Troy, New York, recently had to resurrect an immigrant whom DHS had listed as dead, Delaney said. A similar situation occurred at a New York City office, another employee told CNN.

When this happens, agency staffers review the documents people bring in to verify their identity. Then, they must research what went wrong in the system before correcting the mistake and resurrecting the person. It can take up to an hour, which interferes with the field office’s ability to help others, Delaney said.

Until the last few months, Rennie Glasgow had encountered only three or four instances of people being mistakenly declared dead in his 15 years with Social Security. But his Schenectady, New York, office has already handled four or five cases this year, said Glasgow, vice president at Local 3343.

“The increased amount of people who are alive and have to bring in their ID is cause for concern,” Glasgow said. “It has not happened before.”

Social Security issues reminders to its workers about policies and procedures to maintain payment accuracy, an agency spokesperson said, noting it’s part of the training process.

“As we close the records, we have safeguards in place to ensure that we do not adversely affect individuals who are still alive,” the spokesperson said. “We have a process in place to reinstate individuals in our records if we ever make an error.”

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