Oct 20 (Reuters) – The US Social Security Administration said on Tuesday that it had corrected records for nearly 15% of all active Social Security numbers, adding missing death and citizenship information, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to prevent fraud in the benefits program.
• In what the agency said was the most comprehensive cleanup in its 91-year history, the SSA added 17 million dates of death to records that previously lacked this information
• It also updated about 25 million records that previously had missing citizenship information using data received from the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) service, the SSA said in a statement
• Combined, those changes mean that nearly 15% of all active SSNs covering about 330 million US citizens and nearly 390 million total records have been corrected, the SSA said, adding that it was working to correct another 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status
• “Accurate SSN records prevent fraud across federal programs and support the proper administration of benefits,” SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano said in the statement
• The Social Security Administration administers benefits for tens of millions of older Americans and people with disabilities
• President Donald Trump vowed to address what he said was fraud and waste in the Social Security system after taking office last year
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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