Trump Planned to Add 2.7M Living People to Social Security Death File: Report

According to The Post, Jeremiah Schofield, who worked for Social Security for 25 years and helped lead the agency's IT modernization efforts before leaving in October, "said he refused to help implement the plan after agency lawyers warned that falsely marking living people as dead could violate federal law."

Schofield, The Post reported, "said he realized the plan's possible intent — to intimidate and worsen the finances of immigrants — as well as its potential unlawfulness after taking a sample of people from the 2.7 million and discovering they were all alive. Some were U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, teenagers and senior citizens, including one widow who was a legal permanent resident receiving survivor benefits."

Schofield provided details on the plan "in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations," The Post said.

Schofield told The Post that he is speaking publicly for the first time "because he believes Americans need to understand how government data can be misused and, in some cases, already has been."

The Post article notes its previous reporting on Social Security "moving 6,100 immigrants into its 'Death Master File' — a database used by banks, employers and government agencies to determine whether someone is alive. Some of those people later showed up at Social Security field offices to prove they were alive and were restored in agency records."

In one meeting, according to Schofield, a DOGE official described the goal as "making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested," The Post reported Friday.

Social Security Advocates Weigh In

"We already knew that the Trump administration fraudulently moved over 3,000 living immigrants to Social Security's death master file," Altman said. "Now, the whistleblower reveals that DOGE operatives seriously considered falsely declaring 2.7 million people dead, including U.S. citizens and children."

Altman added: "Moving a living person to Social Security's death master file is financial murder. It means losing access to your bank account, your health insurance, and your credit cards. It means getting kicked out of your home. It means that your life is destroyed."

The Post reported that a Social Security spokesperson said in a email to the news outlet that the agency did not follow through with the plan.

Social Security "should never be used to punish individuals or groups of people because the current president deems them to be enemies, or an imaginary threat to this country," added Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "The Death Master File is for people who have been certified to have passed away, and no longer eligible for benefits. It is unethical and cruel for Trump to want to declare people dead so that they can no longer use their Social Security numbers or access their earned benefits."

Added Richtman: "When the Trump administration began this abuse last year, people wrongly declared 'dead' had to prove themselves to still be alive, causing an enormous amount of stress and wasted time. Even though the whistleblower says the plan to move 2.7 million people onto the Death Master File was tabled, the administration's reported intention to do so — coupled with reckless cutbacks at SSA and the misuse of sensitive Social Security data by DOGE. It proves once more that Trump, despite his claims to the contrary, cannot be trusted with Social Security."