What we know about claim DOGE stopped payments to children whose parents died

On March 22, 2025, Barry Kaufmann, president of the New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, said (archived) at a rally in White Plains, New York, that Small Business Administration loans “discovered” (archived) by the Department of Government Efficiency paid to children 11 or younger were actually “survivor benefit annuities” — using the same SBA acronym — paid to children whose parents had died.

Kaufmann said (at 44:10):

As an example, DOGE claims to have found Social Security loans going to 11-year-olds and under. Not! SBA is not a loan, it’s a survivor benefit annuity to young children whose parents have passed. That’s the problem with IT programmers and billionaires without a clue doing jobs they don’t understand. You can’t find what you don’t know.

Kaufmann’s claim spread across Facebook (archived), X (archived), Threads (archived), Reddit (archived) and Bluesky (archived).

However, it was unclear how Kaufmann backed his claim about the confusion over the two different SBAs. While it is almost certain from his wording that he was referring to DOGE’s SBA loan announcement on March 9, the claim of the funding belonging to the survivor benefit annuity — a benefit paid to eligible spouses, or sometimes children, of federal retirees — clashes with what federal officials have said.

The Small Business Administration confirmed the existence of more than “5,500 loans, totaling about $312M” to businesses “whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger” on March 12 — 10 days before Kaufmann’s claim. DOGE had said it was working with the SBA to “solve this problem.”

We have reached out to Kaufmann and the SBA to further understand the claim and await their replies.

A survivor benefit annuity is a benefit available to federal employees under the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System. The benefit is normally paid to surviving spouses or ex-spouses, but according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government’s central human-resources agency, children can be eligible if they are dependent on the retiree who chose the benefit. “Dependent” in this context means that the deceased “made regular and substantial contributions to the child’s support.”

We reached out to the OPM, which manages the federal retirement plans, to ask how much money it paid to children 11 or younger under this benefit in 2020-21, when DOGE said the loans were paid out, and await a reply.

Meanwhile, the details surrounding the loans allegedly discovered by DOGE remained unclear. The @DOGE or @DOGE_SBA X accounts, the former of which is generally used for DOGE’s public communications, had not posted more information at the time of this writing. The SBA had not provided further details about the loans at the time of this writing.

Sources:

acyn.bsky.social. “Kaufmann: DOGE Claims to Have Found Social Security Loans Going to 11 Year Olds and Under. .” Bluesky, 22 Mar. 2025, https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3lkxzs7p6us2e.

An Autistic Witch. Learning witchcraft at every level. “Automatically Assuming SBA Payments Means ‘Small Business Association’ Loans and Not ‘Survivor Benefits Annuity’.” Facebook, 24 Mar. 2025, https://www.facebook.com/anautisticwitch/posts/pfbid02iEMqTZWR2a3EYXK94YQF1g2eFjmwHqr4eAYwtdWtfhnzodHE6cmxR84K3ehjkUzPl.

@Clobean4. “Kaufmann – “DOGE Claims to Have Found Social Security Loans Going to 11 Year Olds and Under.” X, 24 Mar. 2025, https://x.com/Clobean4/status/1904245670728589468.

@DOGE. “In 2020-2021, SBA Granted 5,593 Loans for $312M to Borrowers Whose Only Listed Owner Was 11 Years Old or Younger at the Time of the Loan.” X, 9 Mar. 2025, https://x.com/DOGE/status/1898587143796338826.

FEBA. “Understanding Your Federal Employee Benefits | What Is a Survivor Benefit Annuity?” FEBA, 10 Aug. 2023, https://www.myfeba.org/understanding-your-federal-employee-benefits-what-is-a-survivor-benefit-annuity/.

Give A Shift About Nature. “DOGE Claims to Have Found Social Security Loans Going to 11-Year-Olds and Under. .” Facebook, 23 Mar. 2025, https://www.facebook.com/giveashiftnature/posts/pfbid02ngeDE76WTnCg7Aruq6LEtbumLvMWd6S8njLd1fhyrfQJGua3vhwMo1qYuMMAqiD5l.

“Learn More about Survivor Benefits and Retirement.” U.S. Office of Personnel Management, https://www.opm.gov/support/retirement/faq/survivor-benefits/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.

@seedanesti. “Elon Musk Told Millions of People That 8 and 11 Year Old Children Were Receiving Business Loans from Social Security.” Threads, 20 Mar. 2025, https://www.threads.net/@seedanesti/post/DHbhY_GS_eA.

Social Security Works. “Hands Off Social Security.” Facebook, 22 Mar. 2025, https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1273688310365508.

u/RoyalChris. “Kaufmann – ‘ ‘DOGE Claims to Have Found Social Security Loans Going to 11 Year Olds and Under.” Reddit, 22 Mar. 2025,