Man, 82, Lost Social Security, Medicare After Being Declared Dead

A 82-year-old Seattle man said that the Social Security Administration (SSA) mistakenly declared him dead last month and cut off his payments — and he can’t help but wonder if it has anything to do with the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Leonard “Ned” Johnson told The Seattle Times that his wife Pam received a letter from his bank in February expressing condolences over her husband’s apparent death in November.

“It was a little weird,” Pam, who initially thought it might be a scam, told CNN, noting that at the time she got the letter, her husband was actually “sitting next to me drinking coffee.”

According to The Seattle Times, the bank’s letter also noted that they had “received a request from [the] Social Security Administration to return benefits paid to LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account after their passing,” which reportedly amounted to about $5,201.

Additionally, he claimed that he hadn’t received his Social Security payments for February and March and that his Medicare insurance had been canceled — and when he called his bank about the matter, he was told to take it up with the agency.

“I was told by the bank that ‘We have no way of communicating with Social Security,’ ” Ned told CNN. “’It comes electronically to us. We automatically react to it.’ ”

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After a few weeks of calling the agency, he received an appointment for March 13, according to the outlets. But when that got pushed to March 24, he decided to go to the Social Security office in downtown Seattle, where Ned, who brought along his passport as proof of existence, said he waited for eight hours.

The situation was apparently resolved after Ned spoke with someone there, The Seattle Times reported, and the agency promised they would make things right. Ned told the newspaper that his bank called to tell him the deducted deposits were back in his account, although he claims he has yet to receive his February and March Social Security payments. 

When reached for comment, the Social Security Administration told PEOPLE that “privacy laws preclude us from discussing specific cases,” but referred to a recent press release about what to do if you are ” erroneously reported as deceased.”

Speaking with CNN, although Pamela said that they may “never know” what caused the mistake, her husband couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a connection to DOGE and Trump’s false claims that millions of dead people over the age of 100 have been receiving Social Security payments.

During a recent address to Congress, Trump vowed to “find where that money is going” — and, DOGE, spearheaded by Elon Musk, has a number of staffers working inside the agency, work that began in February, shortly before Johnson was declared dead, reported CNN.

The agency is facing a 12 percent cut in its workforce under DOGE, The New York Times reported, noting that current and former SSA employees are concerned that the cuts could harm the program, which provides payments to 73 million Americans each month. 

Summing up their situation – and fears about what could happen to the SSA – Pam told The Seattle Times, “You sort of have no choice but to laugh it off. But it seems like it’s going to get worse.”