By Bulletin Staff
Representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency are alleging that the government is paying out billions of dollars annually in Social Security payments to the undead, bringing long-debunked claims of “zombie freeloaders” back from the grave.
“More than 1 million of the undead are receiving monthly Social Security checks, costing taxpayers more than $28 billion every year,” DOGE said in a statement released on its website yesterday. “These shamblers are eating more than just Americans’ brains, they are also chewing a massive hole in the government’s budget.”
In its statement, DOGE said that it had begun canceling Social Security and other payments to people it believes to be zombies, saving tens of billions for the government.
“Z” Is Not Always for “Zombie”
However, former employees of the Social Security Administration told the Bulletin that the DOGE team appears to have misinterpreted a Medicaid classification code as indicating that an individual is a zombie.
In fact, in SSA data, the classification “Z” in the Medicaid eligibility code indicates that a recipient is not eligible for, or waives, federally administered optional supplementation. This code signifies that the individual is not entitled to state-administered optional supplementation, not that the individual is a zombie, the former employees said.
DOGE’s mix-up in mistaking living Americans for the living dead is one of a series of blunders that have included attempting to move millions of names onto the so-called Death Master File, a government database used to track dead individuals who should no longer get benefits, as reported in the Washington Post.
Mix-up Leads to Mayhem for the Living
The DOGE campaign to nullify the living in the “Z” mix-up has caused havoc for those misclassified, ranging from canceled bank accounts to withheld government benefits, based on more than a dozen interviews of the affected conducted by the Bulletin.
“I went to withdraw money from savings to use as a downpayment for a car, and the bank told me that my account had been suspended because the government had put me on some zombie list,” Amish Wadsworth recounted to the Bulletin.
“I told the clerk that I was obviously not one of the living dead, but they said that I’d have to get the government to declare me not undead before they could reinstate my account,” Wadsworth continued. “I tried calling Social Security, but I just got put on hold for hours until I gave up. My life savings are in that account. How am I supposed to get by?”
Even small cuts to benefits can have a big impact on an individual’s life. Mary Jo Zellinger, who lives in a nursing home and depends on Medicaid to cover most of the cost of her care, said that she relies on her already reduced Social Security benefit of about $30 per month to pay for personal care items and toiletries.
“I get that $30 may seem trivial to a billionaire, but for someone like me in a nursing home or long-term care facility with no other income or family support, it allows for a tiny degree of autonomy and dignity,” Zellinger told the Bulletin.
The impact on the undead has been nil, since multiple government audits have shown that the number of zombies collecting government benefits is typically in the low single digits in any given year, thanks to the government’s meticulous methodology for tracking the turned.
“Zombie Payments” Claims Have Long History
Claims that the government was sending Social Security checks to the undead have been around since even before President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the program into law in 1935.
At the time, John Taber (R–NY), a vocal opponent of the bill that created Social Security, argued that the program was a dangerous expansion of federal control and would lead to “a vast army of government employees supporting a vast horde of the undead.”
On the other side of the political aisle, Millard Tydings (D–MD), known for his states’ rights orientation and general skepticism toward New Deal expansion, raised concerns about the complexity of the program and suggested that the government would be unable to effectively track the zombie population to ensure that the undead did not receive benefits.
More recently, members of the Congressional Freedom from Zombies Caucus have called for hearings into claims that legions of the undead are living off the public weal. This, despite the fact that repeated investigations by the Social Security Administration and other government agencies have turned up no indication that this is a widespread issue.
“No Evidence” Flesheaters Are Chewing into Social Security
“There is just no evidence that the living dead are siphoning off Social Security or any other government funds intended for the living,” says Greg Song, research director with the Center for the Study of the Undead and Government at the University of Wyoming, Red Butte.
Song added, “The amount of taxpayer dollars going into zombie wallets is not even a rounding error for the federal budget, and one study found that the government would have to spend more than $1.5 billion every year to save the fraction of that being spent on zombie Social Security.”
Song also noted that the number of undead on the public dole may increase due to cuts that the administration is making across every government agency. He pointed out that all 243 staff members of the Living Dead Division (LDD) under the Demographic wing of the Census Bureau were placed on administrative leave two weeks ago.
The LDD collects and harmonizes data on zombified US citizens for (among other reasons) the purpose of ensuring that the newly undead are removed from public benefit rolls. The LDD’s elimination will likely impair the government’s ability to determine who is living and undead in various databases, according to sources familiar with the LDD’s work.
“Everyone is in favor of cutting actual waste out of the government, but when you use a chainsaw instead of a scalpel, you risk chopping off the heads of people who do the work of ensuring that the government operates efficiently and effectively, rather than the heads of zombies,” Song said.
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