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A document from the Trump administration has come to light, indicating that the new anti-fraud measures implemented at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have identified only two questionable claims out of over 110,000. This finding, which represents a mere 0.0018% incidence rate, suggests that fraud within Social Security is exceedingly rare, while the measures themselves have significantly slowed down the payment process.<\/p>\n
According to a report first released on Thursday by Nextgov\/FCW<\/em>, these findings challenge the assertions made by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who have portrayed Social Security as fraught with fraud. Notably, Musk inaccurately claimed in March that “40% of the calls into Social Security were fraudulent.”<\/p>\n The scrutiny under these anti-fraud measures has been limited to claims made via telephone. The internal document highlighted that these measures have “found no significant fraud among the cases flagged.” Earlier in the year, the SSA reconsidered a decision to eliminate many of its telephone-based services following public backlash.<\/p>\n Nextgov\/FCW<\/em> reported on Thursday that the introduction of these anti-fraud tools last month by the Trump administration “led to delays, as SSA altered its telephone procedures to incorporate these checks on the backend.”<\/p>\n These delays are primarily due to a three-day hold on telephone claims needed to conduct the anti-fraud checks. According to Nextgov\/FCW<\/em>, this procedure “delays payments and benefits to customers, despite an extremely low risk of fraud,” as cited from the internal document.<\/p>\n Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) criticized the administration’s approach, stating, “the Trump-Musk Social Security takeover has only added more chaos and confusion for Americans.”<\/p>\n Warren further commented, “Every one of DOGE’s so-called ‘mistakes’ is a backdoor cut to people’s benefits. There’s nothing efficient about making it harder for people to access the checks they\u2019ve earned and are owed.”<\/p>\n On social media, Warren described the revelations from the internal document as “a HUGE scandal.”<\/p>\n \n\t\tThis is a HUGE scandal. [image or embed]<\/p>\n \t\t\u2014 Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) May 15, 2025 at 4:13 PM<\/p><\/blockquote>\n An inspector general report from the previous year indicated that only 0.84% of Social Security payments made between 2015 and 2022 were misallocated, and not all of these were necessarily due to fraud.<\/p>\n The recent report emphasizes concerns that the Trump administration’s focus on fraud may be an excuse to cut Social Security benefits and weaken the program overall.<\/p>\n “It turns out there ISN’T rampant Social Security fraud, but Elon’s witch hunt, driven by his outlandish conspiracy theories, IS preventing seniors from receiving their benefits promptly,” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) stated on social media. “THIS is Republican governance: searching for non-existent fraud while undermining Social Security.”<\/p>\n Frank Bisignano, the newly appointed SSA administrator who has close associations with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has supported the president’s unfounded assertions that millions of deceased individuals are collecting Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n CNN<\/em> reported this week that as SSA verifies the life status of beneficiaries at the behest of Trump and Musk, staff are “seeing more people coming in to be resurrected” after being erroneously declared dead.<\/p>\n “I’ve been saying it all along,” former SSA chief Martin O’Malley remarked on Thursday. “Elon Musk is the biggest fraud, not Social Security.”<\/p>\n\n\n
\nElon Musk, JD Vance, and Trump are lying about Social Security fraud.
\nInternal documents show DOGE found “no significant fraud”\u2014but did slow retirement claim processing by 25%.
\nNothing efficient about making it harder for people to get their benefits.<\/p>\n