Stimulating the Dead

In an article on FactCheck.org I came across this bizarre stimulus factoid: Stimulating the Dead – stimulus checks of $250 were mailed to dead and jailed people – about $22million worth. Looking into an article in the Wall Street Journal FactCheck followed the trail to an Inspector General’s report of September 24 2010:

The I.G.’s audit estimated:

• 71,688 recipients were deceased before the payment certification date, and received $18 million.
• 17,348 recipients were incarcerated and received $4.3 million.

Making matters worse, the IG estimated that more than 8,000 of the payments to the dead were to persons with whom the Social Security Administration had not had any contact for more than 30 years, and who would have been between 112 and 136 years old had they been alive.

Over half the payments to dead people were returned. Moved to heaven left no forwarding address. Grave error.