The Social Security Administration has announced what the article calls its biggest change in 91 years: an official cleanup of Social Security Number records, confirmed to Fox News, with nearly 50 million records corrected since January 2025 — almost 15% of the 330 million active SSN records.
The cleanup includes adding 17 million previously missing dates of death, updating around 25 million records with missing citizenship information, and correcting a further 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status.
The stated purpose is to strengthen identity checks, protect personal information, crack down on fraud and ensure benefits are paid correctly. Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano called the SSN database the country’s books and records, saying this is the first SSA effort of this scale.
For readers, the article says it is business as usual: nobody needs to change anything, no numbers have been taken away, and monthly payments continue as normal — and separately, a 3.6% cost-of-living increase for next year is expected to average around $75 per month for recipients.