Social Security is not paying 150 year old's and here's proof.
In response to EM's screenshot of a database query, I thought some context would help. Starting in 2015, the SSA OIG has reported on folks too old to be paid SS benefits existing in the SSA database. This report from 2023 summarizes the issue, and why SSA isn't going to retroactively fix it.
https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf
TLDR; Yes, there are millions of entries for folks older that 112 in the SSA database. No, they aren't being paid benefits, and the cost to manually correct these death dates would have no positive benefit on cost savings for the SSA, so they aren't going to go back and do it. They have implemented new processes to increase accuracy in the future.
Edit to address some criticism:
To address some of the criticism regarding the "2 %". The often quoted statement from the report that identified this statistic is below:
"Approximately 18.4 million (98 percent) numberholders are not currently receiving SSA payments and have not had earnings reported to SSA in the past 50 years (see 14 ). The fact that these individuals were age 100 or older, had no earnings in the past 50 years, and received no SSA payments indicates they are deceased."
The associated table combined with this information clearly illustrates that the point of this statement is that at least 98 percent of the numberholders have not reported earnings in 50 years. Therefore, you could reasonably take risk to update the files to show that they are deceased. It does not state that 2 percent of the numberholders are still receiving payments.
Futhermore, if you read footnote 7 on page 2, it states that:
"At the time of our review, approximately 44,000 of the 18.9 million numberholders were receiving SSA payments."
and that number is less than the estimated number of centenarians in the country at the time of the report in 2015 (86,000).
Finally, the SSA does not pay claims to people older than 115, by rule.