President Donald Trump baselessly claimed that people born throughout the Civil Struggle – and even prior to – were receiving Social Safety assessments.

On Sunday, White Home adviser Elon Musk claimed his “Department of Govt Efficiency” discovered that greater than 20 million Americans over the age of a hundred had been receiving assessments from the Social Safety Administration. He alleged the figure integrated people who have been born in 1875. The billionaire shared a screenshot of a spreadsheet he stated used to be from the SSA’s database.

Speaking at a convention of buyers in Miami on Wednesday, the president reiterated Musk’s baseless claims about Social Security and appeared to add some embellishments of his own.

“However take heed to this – three.6 million individuals are on Social Safety rolls from the age of one hundred ten years old to 119,” he stated. “Do you think there are in point of fact that many? These persons are significantly old. But it surely gets worse – three.four 7 million persons are on Social Safety from the age of a hundred and twenty years previous to 129 years previous, 3.9 million persons are on Social Security from one hundred thirty years old to 139 years previous.”

Trump later delivered that there are “3.5 million people from the age one hundred forty to 149 years old” on Social Safety, and that “1.3 million persons are on Social Safety from age one hundred fifty-159. And over a hundred thirty,000 persons are on Social Security over the age of a hundred and sixty years previous, good enough? Together with 1,039 folks. Call to mind it. Over one thousand folks, between the a while of 220-229. And one person of 240 years old and 249. And the document topper, there’s one person on Social Safety who’s 360 years previous, which is approximately one hundred ten years older than our us of a.”

The assembled crowd cheered Trump’s performance.

As a number of publications have mentioned, some of these claims appear to originate from a quirk in the SSA’s databases, which use an outdated programming language known as COBOL. As The Washington Put up defined:

The problem with COBOL is that it doesn’t have a standardized technique to store and work with dates — not like most modern programming languages. As a substitute, many dates in COBOL should be coded to a reference quantity, often the use of an international same old, Rege defined.

The most common reference date number is May just 20, 1875, beneath a global standard referred to as ISO 8601. That means if any individual applies for Social Security with out a beginning date, they could also be recorded as a hundred and fifty years outdated within the database relying on how a programmer troubleshoots the issue.

Programmers can overcome these barriers in COBOL’s performance, but they might also opt to use 1875 as a placeholder for unknown dates if it aligns with the database’s goal… As an example, when the federal executive commenced issuing regular monthly Social Safety funds in January 1940, recipients wanted to be at the least 65 to qualify, that means they needed to be born in 1875 or ahead of.

Folks who crafted the Social Security database may have, due to this fact, set 1875 because the default start yr for any person who lacked that knowledge at the time.

The Social Safety Administration used to be thrown into turmoil this week when its Trump-appointed performing commissioner resigned after Musk and DOGE demanded access to “sensitive recordsdata” on the company. Trump used to be requested in regards to the resignation a day later and he appeared to be unable to don’t forget if she resigned or he fired her.

“I don’t recognize,” he stated. “I mean, I– resigned or got fired. I believe I fired. You already know, while you fire any person, they always resign after which they say, ‘We resigned.’”

Watch above by means of C-SPAN.

The post Trump Baselessly Claims Thousands and thousands of Folks Born in the 1800s Are Getting Social Security Assessments first appeared on Mediaite.