The Social Security Administration announced the most comprehensive cleanup of its database in the agency's 91-year history, correcting records for nearly 15 percent of all active Social Security numbers across approximately 330 million U.S. citizens and nearly 390 million total records since the beginning of the Trump Administration.
The completed work has added 17 million dates of death to records that previously lacked this information and updated approximately 25 million records with previously missing or inaccurate citizenship information, the agency said. The administration is currently correcting an additional 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status.
The Social Security Administration said the improvements are designed to prevent fraud across federal programs, strengthen government services, and support proper administration of benefits. The Social Security database is referenced by federal agencies and states to validate identities and prevent improper payments.
The Social Security Administration has also implemented stronger internal controls to prevent inaccuracies from manual data entry in the future, the agency said.