WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are getting older, but not this old: Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112.
Bit of an overblown title and a nothing burger. 6.5m records of people were simply never closed off with a recorded death. The SSA requires a certified death certificate to close off a file and many of those were lost or never filed by the local authority back in ye olden days of forgotten paperwork.
They can still technically be used fraudulently, for credit and bank accounts and other applications that require SSN's, if scammers were able to obtain the full info of the lost people. but only 13 of these records were collecting benefits.
Flawed was a poor word choice. Outdated or unverified/unverifiable would have been better.
As the person with the SSA says they work based on verifiable facts and records not assumptions. Hence why 6.5million SSN's for people to old to be alive are still active even if that is impossible. Their records are as accurate as they can make them without unlimited time and resources.