For several years, we’ve seen stories about people declared dead by the Social Security Administration. Many went through a lot of hoops to officially resurrect themselves. In the interim, they didn’t get the proper payments due. And for some people, this created a real hardship.

Now we hear about $600 million in benefit payments that, over the past five years, were mailed to the deceased. The payments were meant for retired or disabled federal workers. But because former employers were not informed of the deaths (or maybe nobody reads the obituaries in Washington), the checks just kept going out.

In one case, according to The Associated Press, the decedent’s son received and negotiated his father’s checks for 37 years after the retiree’s death. The mistaken payments were only discovered by authorities when the son died in 2008.

It’s not a new problem, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general, Patrick McFarland, who said that the government has been aware of the problem since 2005.

Here’s an idea: Take the millions of Americans who need jobs and put them to work simply calling all these folks and verifying that they’re still alive and kicking.

At least for a while (probably years, frankly, with all the red tape that is likely involved in the task), our unemployment rate will take a turn for the better.

— Anderson Independent-Mail, South Carolina, Sept. 26

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