June 5, 2013 (Updated 6/12/13)

Social Inconsistency: Approximately 90% of New York's 9/11 'Victims' Didn't Go To Work on September 11, 2001

In June 2011 Scripps Howard News Service reported that the names of 9/11 victims weren't listed on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF),(1) a death registry for persons holding social security numbers. In an attempt to learn why so few 9/11 victims names weren't on the registry, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. asked city, state and federal authorities for clarification.(2) New York City officials were the first to go on record:

Another major non-government source of death reports are family members who are eligible to receive Social Security survivor benefits. "In our vital-records analysis of those deaths, we determined that about 70 percent of these people were under 40," said Susan Craig, a spokeswoman for the New York City Health Department. [Steven] Schwartz [vital-records registrar for New York City] agreed. "There is no question that these were largely younger people," he said. "When there are younger victims, there may not be survivors" to claim federal benefits. As a result, more than 90 percent of New York's victims were not recorded in the Death Master File.(3)

Is this true? Not according to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Survivors benefits also go to:

Your unmarried children who are younger than age 18 (or up to age 19 if they are attending elementary or secondary school full time) also can receive benefits. Your children can get benefits at any age if they were disabled before age 22 and remain disabled. Under certain circumstances, benefits also can be paid to your stepchildren, grandchildren, stepgrandchildren or adopted children.(4)

Contradicting what Steven Schwartz said that, "When there are younger victims [under 40], there may not be survivors "to claim federal benefits" , in fact, according to SSA, such "younger victims" would be more likely to have survivors within the eligibility category of children under 18, therefore "younger victims'" names would be more likely to be listed on the Death Master File. Incidentally, when children are eligible for survivors benefits, automatically the spouse is too if the child is under 16.(5)

In fact, last month SSA came out with a report that again disputes Steven Schwartz's, and Susan Craig, claims. According to SSA’s Office of the Inspector General, whose audit report was released last month on the reporting accuracy of 9/11 victims' names on the Death Master File,(6) we have the admission:

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

SSA promptly and accurately recorded most of the September 11 victims’ death information on its records. Death information for nearly all victims appeared on the full version of the DMF. However, SSA did not record 102 victims’ death information on the Numident. In most cases, SSA had received death reports and recorded the victims’ date of death on other SSA records, but not the Numident. Consequently, these victims’ death information did not appear on the DMF. As a result, we recommend that SSA input the 102 numberholders’ death entries on the Numident.(7)

Of the 2,930 9/11 victims killed, within 1 year SSA had recorded death entries for 2,799 (96%). In 29 additional cases, SSA recorded the victims’ death information more than 1 year after their deaths, totaling then 2,828 cases appearing on the DMF, representing a 97% registry rate.(8)

Well, reading New York’s and Washington’s irreconcilable and contradictory facts and numbers on what should be a consistent narrative between the two levels of governments, both government entities have tripped over themselves into a scandal. Failure to get their stories straight before commenting has proved that greater than 90% of New York's 9/11 victims didn’t show up for work that otherwise beautiful Tuesday morning. Because those "victims" would need their social security numbers in the future, their names weren't placed in the Death Master File, which inclusion would have deactivated the accompanying social security numbers.

Another point: The SSA audit report fails to explain how the total number of deaths in America on September 11, 2001 was down by 3,000 on the Death Master File's daily average, as reported in the Scripps Howard News Service investigation. Scripps Howard reported:

According to the Death Master File -- the official record of 90 million deceased Americans who were issued Social Security cards since 1937 -- there were 6,298 deaths recorded on that awful day in 2001 when terrorists struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural area in Pennsylvania. But since an average of 6,200 Americans die every day, there should have been more than 9,000 deaths recorded for Sept. 11, 2001....

The CDC's registry correctly shows a 3,000-death bump above average for that day in 2001.(9)

If one had performed an audit of the Death Master File's publicly available version, the Social Security Death Index (SSDI),(10) before November 1, 2011,(11) one would have come up with the same statistic Scripps Howard News Service turned up, that being less than 10% of New York's victims’ names showing up. In fact, I performed several such exercises and came up with approximately the same result.
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1. Grave Mistakes: Has Social Security Killed You

2. Why 9/11 victims' names are missing from federal death registry

3. Ibid.

4. Social Security: Survivors Benefits

5 Ibid.

6. “Timeliness and Accuracy of Death Reporting for Individuals Killed During the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks”,  Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, May 21, 2013.

7. Ibid, p. 9.

8. Ibid, p. 7.

9. "Why are 3,000 victims of 9/11 missing from Social Security death list?”, Grave Mistakes: Has Social Security Killed You.

10. See Jackson Report news filing for July 14, 2011; first news filing for July 18, 2011; and first news filing for August 5, 2011.

11. The SSA audit report states in footnote 1, “The full version of the DMF includes more than 90 million records. Section 205(r) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 405(r), prohibits SSA from disclosing State death records received through contracts with the States, except in limited circumstances. As a result, the public version of the DMF includes about five million fewer records."

Few of the 9/11 victims' names would have fallen under such disclosure prohibition since non-State "source[s] of death information" negate the prohibition rule, and  "Social Security responded to the September 11th terrorist attacks by activating special emergency procedures to give the fastest possible service to the families of the victims of the tragedies at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. These procedures allowed for acceptance of documents as proof of death that, under other circumstances, would not have been accepted. Airplane manifests, lists of employees furnished by employers and other statements that placed the worker at the scene of the attacks were accepted. Social Security employees helped families at special assistance centers that were established in New York, Arlington, VA, and Shanksville, PA.", and funeral directors would have provided their standard service of notifying SSA of those remaining victims whose families hadn't applied for survivors benefits, approximately 700  families of the affected approximately 3,000 families, including for victims whose bodies weren't present (again, directly contradicting Steven Schwartz who said, "In most cases there were no physical remains, so (private) funeral directors were not involved."). One such funeral service held for a missing body was that of Daniel Patrick Trant, father of three, held on Sunday, September 16, 2001. Hmm, the family didn't wait long for the "body's" discovery or remains of the "body", did they? And we know why!

Note: Footnote 1 of the SSA audit report attempts to muddy the waters  when it mentions the removal of approximately five-million historical death records on the public version of the Death Master File (SSDI), that removal going "into effect November 1, 2011". The audit report fails to mention that this removal wouldn't explain why before November 1, 2011 greater than 90% of New York's 9/11 victims' names weren't listed on the SSDI.