Fact Check: Donald Trump claims "thousands" over age 106 on Social Security
At the CBS News GOP presidential debate Saturday night, Donald Trump claimed that "thousands and thousands of people" over the age of 106 are receiving Social Security benefits, even though they don't exist.
But that's not the case.
A report from the Social Security Administration's inspector general last year did find that there are an estimated 6.5 million Social Security number holders who are age 112 or older who are not listed as deceased.
"SSA did not have controls in place to annotate death information on the Numident records of number holders who exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies and were likely deceased," the report said.
Nearly all of the 6.5 million Social Security number holders had no earnings or payments from Social Security on their records, which suggests they weren't actually receiving benefits.
The inspector general, however, did determine that "thousands" of the Social Security numbers "could have been used to commit identity fraud."
It appears Trump might have misspoken because he appeared to share a more accurate version of the statistic at a rally in December.
