Theres not a guy here right now thats not hurting in some way, shape, or form. One of them, i think, broke his nose last friday. Nobody cares. Martin is he going to fight today . Nobody cares. Martin so, how would a woman do in there . If she comes to this course and gets to this point, shell be treated just like the men are, so well see. Martin for the first time in its history, the marine corps has opened up this punishing course to women. Can they pass the test . Have a look and judge for yourself. Stahl Damian Aspinall likes to play tug of war with tigers and pet rhinos on his very own wildlife refuge in england. But gorillas are his best buddies, and wrestling with them is his favorite pastime. Now, the tricky thing is getting out. Stahl but damian is controversial because of his efforts to move his zooborn gorillas to the wilds of africa, a project conservationists warned us might not go well. Im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im morley safer. Im bill whitaker. Im scott pelley. 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Sfx common city background noise credit belongs to the man who strives valiantly who errs who spends himself in a worthy cause and who, if he fails at least fails, while daring greatly sfx background city noise pelley it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, nothing can be said to be certain but death and taxes. Turns out, with taxes, that may be true, but not so much with death. In america, the job of ultimately accounting for who is dead or alive belongs to the Social Security administration which compiles something called the death master file. There are about 86 million names on this National List of the deceased. And its deadly Serious Business because when youre added to the file, that means that banks, the i. R. S. , medicare, Law Enforcement and the like scratch you out of existence. But we found that the death master file is often fatally flawed. A lot of people who pass on dont get on the list, which costs taxpayers billions of dollars in fraudulent payments to people standing in for the departed. And then, there are those who are on the death master file who are very surprised to hear that theyre dead. How many of you have been declared dead by the federal government . All of you. Youre looking pretty well to me. This would be a seeance, except these are living, breathing americans that we conjured up from around the country, all declared dead by the Social Security administration. Don pilger passed away when he tried to report the death of his wife. This is a form from the Social Security administration. The idea was you were going to call this number and essentially report that your wife had passed. Don pilger exactly. And thats what i did on the following monday. Eight days later, i went to access my bank account and it was. They kept saying, invalid pin. So i went to the bank and i give the lady the problem i was having. She typed my numbers into the computer and she grabbed my hand, she says, mr. Pilger, i dont believe this. They reported you deceased and not your wife. Pelley kristina paces life was cut short at an early age. Kristina pace i was in college, i walked into the bank to open up an account and same thing. We cant help you. Well, why . Youre coming up as deceased. You need to go to Social Security office. And i did. But just randomly, years later it would come up. Id want to get a car or something. Oh, no. Oh, let me guess. Im dead . So. Pelley Betty Denault was summoned to her Social Security office where the computer read like an epitaph. Betty denault and she pointed on the screen up in the corner and it said, d. O. D. And i said, what does d. O. D. Mean . And she said, date of death. And i said, well, how did you come up with this . And she said, all it takes is somebody to input on the computer the wrong numbers. And it just makes a big difference, of course. Pelley most people never find out how it happens, but when the federal computer says youre dead, you might as well be. The terrible news is relayed by the government to banks and credit agencies. Judy rivers told us she had 80,000 in her accounts, but when she tried to use a bank card at a store, they assumed she was an identity thief. You couldnt get access to your bank accounts. You couldnt get a credit card. How did you live . Judy rivers well, for a time, i lived in my car. And i couldnt get an apartment. I had my debit cards, which were, of course, no good. I used one without knowing the consequences, and was actually taken to jail and questioned because they thought i was an identity thief. Pelley you ended up arrested . Ended up living in your car because of all of this. Rivers for six months. Pelley you had been eliminated from the human race. Rivers cyber ghost. Pelley cyber ghost. Pilger cyber ghost. Pelley judy rivers now haunts a borrowed camper in alabama, and while her finances were ruined, she found that the government makes a tidy profit selling the death master file to credit agencies. So, word of her death was nearly immortal in dozens of databases, and it came back again and again. She protested to a Credit Agency called chexsystems for what seemed like an eternity. Rivers finally, chexsystems responded to me and told me to send my information in and they would consider it, after i had sent it to them over 20 times. Pelley they would consider whether you were still alive. Rivers correct. Pelley we looked in the Alabama Vital Records Office for rivers death notice, but its not there. No one seems to know how she got in the federal death master file. God may judge the quick and the dead, but its the states that collect the data. They pass it along to Social Security, and there is plenty of room for error. Record bureaus get death notices from doctors, hospitals, funeral homes, or families, and every state has its own rules. Perhaps because the dead dont vote, many of the states dont spend much keeping tabs on them. This is the state of alabama vital records vault. It is a place so secure that you need a key and a fingerprint to get inside. But once in here, the Technology Becomes pretty 19th century. These are death certificates from 1912, for example. All in all, there are 17 million paper records in here. Now, the state of alabama is moving toward an electronic system, and its about 60 of the way there. But theres so little funding around the country for that kind of transition that there are about a dozen states in america that do not have a statewide Electronic Filing system for death records. How accurate is the death master file . Patrick ocarroll i guess, the best way to say it is as accurate as it can be. Pelley Patrick Ocarroll is the Social Security administrations Inspector General. His Office Investigates how the death master file is used and abused. Ocarroll right now, the death master file has in it about 86 million records in it and it gets about two million records every year from the states. And were probably, as with everything else, as strong as the weakest link, in terms that some states are reporting electronically have very good data. And then with other states, its done on a more haphazard level. So again, theres going to be some falling through the cracks there. Pelley but ocarroll told us that live people falling through the cracks isnt what keeps him up at night. The much more costly problem is in the millions of americans who do die and are not recorded. Your office found that Social Security had no death data for six and a half Million People over the age of 111. Do you really believe that there are six and a half Million People over the age of 111 in this country . Ocarroll no, and in fact, thats why we did the audit on it. What we were finding is that people that were over 112 years of age were opening up bank accounts, and it got us suspicious. And we found that 6. 5 million was not recorded as being deceased in ssas records. Pelley how many people are over the age of 111 in this country . Ocarroll im thinking ten. Pelley most federal agencies depend on the death master file, so if a death isnt listed federal payments just keep coming. We wondered what that would add up to during the course of a year, but it turns out, no one in the federal government is keeping an overall count. The best we could come up with was a few reports from individual agencies. For example, the department of agriculture paid farm subsidies and Disaster Assistance to more than 170,000 dead people over six years. That came to 1. 1 billion. The office of Personnel Management paid dead federal retirees a little over a billion. And in 2010 alone, the i. R. S. Paid more than 400 million in refunds to the dead. Social security doesnt know how many retirement and disability checks are cashed by the relatives of the dead, like Sandra Kimbro. Sandra kimbro im a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and now a felon. Pelley like a lot of people, she took in her aging, ill mother, and had a joint bank account with her. When her mother died, the disability benefits kept coming. When did she die . Kimbro she died. 1984. Pelley when she died, did you report her death to Social Security . Kimbro i did not. Pelley why not . Kimbro i thought perhaps it would have been taken care of by the funeral director at some point. Pelley were you surprised that these benefits kept coming to you . Kimbro no, not initially because i had had a conversation with my mom prior to her death that i would be entitled to the benefits. So i had just assumed and went along with that, thinking that i was entitled. Pelley and what did it come to . Kimbro over a 30year period, 160,000. Pelley though she took the checks for three decades otherwise, Sandra Kimbro is no ones idea of a thief. She and her husband had good fulltime jobs through retirement, a solid middle class life, and raised two children. But then came an unexpected call from Social Security. The investigator from Social Security mustve asked where your mother was . Kimbro oh, well, i explained to him immediately. I didnt try to say that she was alive. I said that she was deceased. Pelley Social Security suspected as much because it is using a clever new tool. Ocarroll so, we go to medicare and see if anybody hasnt been to medicare for three years. And if they havent been, we then, you know, try to go out and make a phone call to them, see if theyre, you know, still here. Also, we look at people that reach 100 years of age, and try to reach out and see if theyre, you know, doing well. Pelley Sandra Kimbros mother would have been 93 and hadnt used medicare in 30 years. Kimbro was charged with theft, pled guilty, and is now looking at at least a year in prison. She spoke with us, she said, to warn others. Kimbro ive spent 66 years no criminal history. Havent done nothing wrong lived a good life, did everything i was supposed to do, be a lawabiding citizen, and succumbed to this human error. And this is where i am. And obviously, felon is not compatible with the other three things that i said, but it is my reality. Pelley Inspector GeneralPatrick Ocarroll says that Social Security is managing about 150 convictions a year, a fraction of the total. But it adds up to about 55 million in fraud. Ocarroll what were trying to do is get the word out there, is, if you do take it and youre not supposed to do it, were going to find you, were going to arrest you, and were going to get the money back. Pelley over the last decade, ocarroll has made 70 recommendations to Social Security to reform the death master file. But he says theres little sense of urgency. Is part of the problem here that, in washington, 50 million or 100 million a year just isnt a very big number . Ocarroll its interesting you bring that up, because i deal in very big numbers. About 2 billion go out every day. So, when you start taking a look at percentages of 2 billion thats what to you, me, to a general taxpayer is going to be extremely large amounts of money really, percentagewise, is small compared to whats going out every day. Pelley as for the living whove been declared dead, Social Security told us we work very hard to correct errors when we learn of them. The agency said that its error rate is only one third of 1 . But that still adds up to about 9,000 americans killed off by the government each year. For them, it can be a long road to resurrection. It took judy rivers five years. And today, she carries a few credit cards, and something else. You carry a letter around with you. Rivers all the time. Pelley . Everywhere you go. What does it say . Rivers its from the Social Security office, and i have it updated once a month. And it says that. Who i am what my Social Security number is, that i have been mistakenly declared as deceased in the past, and that that is not correct, and im alive and well, or at least alive. Pelley and you have that updated every month . Rivers every month. Pelley why . Rivers because when you get to about three months, people look at the date and say, well, this is old. You know, you couldve died since then. Pelley tomorrow, the u. S. Senates Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee will hold a hearing on all of this. Senators ron johnson and tom carper will introduce a bill to ensure that improper payments to the dead stop, and the living stay off the death master file. Cbs money watch update brought to you in part by glor good evening. G. E. Is selling g. E. Capital in Australianew Zealand to an Investment Group for more than 6 billion. The feds meeting this week could set the stage for the first Interest Rate hike since 2006. And blackberry says its launching a securitybased tablet, the 2,300s secutablet. Im jeff glor, cbs news. Sal khan khan academy is a notforprofit, with a mission of providing a free worldclass education for anyone anywhere. If you look at a khan academy video, they can cover everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, trigonometry, finance. You can really just get what you need at your own pace. And so, bank of america came and reached out to us and said we are really interested in making sure that everyone really understands personal finance. and were like well, were already doing that. and so it was kind of a perfect match. Pelley now, cbs news correspondent david martin on assignment for 60 minutes. Martin remember that old recruiting ad the marines are. Looking for a few good men . Well, now, theyre looking for a few good women as well. The Armed Services have been ordered to open all their Ground Combat units to women by the end of this year, or else give the secretary of defense a good reason why not. For the marines, that means accepting female volunteers into their infantry Officer School to see if they can make it through the grueling threemonth course. You would expect the training to be tough, but we had no idea how tough until we saw it. The marines have kept most of what happens in that course secret so anyone going through it doesnt know what to expect. But they opened it up for us so you could see what it takes to become a marine infantry officer male or female, it doesnt matter, because the demands are the same. Can women do it . Take a look and judge for yourself. Marine Second Lieutenants charging into battle on their knees. This drill comes two weeks into the 86day infantry Officers Course and its unlike any training weve ever seen. Theyre on their knees to slow things down enough so as not to cause serious injury. It looks almost prehistoric, but marine general george smith says its what combats all about. George smith were talking about actively seeking out and locating and closing with, and then destroying the enemy. Martin general smith is in charge of an experiment that would put women into the middle of that scrum, which, until now, has been entirely a mans arena. Second lieutenant melissa cooling wants to be one of those women. But before she can start infantry training, she has to pass whats known as the combat endurance test, a 14hour marathon of physical pain and mental stress which includes everything from basic pullups to land navigation and an obstacle course, all of that spread out over 16 miles. She knows shes facing longer odds than any of the men here. In the last two years, 20 women have gone before her and only one has passed the test. You knew what the odds were. Melissa cooling if you loo