Social Security

There are cases nationwide of Social Security checks getting cashed after people have died. Here is a look at some of the more unusual cases compiled from court records and news accounts:

-- In a bizarre 2009 indictment, Thomas Prusik-Parkin, 49, of Brooklyn, donned a wig, nail polish, a dress, cane and oxygen tank to impersonate his dead mother and collect $115,000 in Social Security and rent subsidies after her death in 2003.

Why are the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11 missing from an official federal registry of death?

According to the Death Master File -- the official record of 90 million deceased Americans who were issued Social Security cards since 1937 -- there were 6,298 deaths recorded on that awful day in 2001 when terrorists struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural area in Pennsylvania.

But since an average of 6,200 Americans die every day, there should have been more than 9,000 deaths recorded for Sept. 11, 2001.

Conspicuous by their absence in the federal file are many prominent victims of the attacks, including New York City Fire Chief Peter Ganci Jr., Fire Department Chaplain Mychal Judge and businessmen Daniel Lewin, founder of Akamai Technologies, and Thomas Burnett Jr. chief operating officer of Thoratec Corp.

For the first time in the 74 years that the Social Security program has been paying benefits, new applicants will not have the option to receive their benefits by check.

Benefits will have to be deposited directly into one's bank or credit-union account, or loaded onto a special prepaid debit card.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Health care, government spending and birthright citizenship dominated the final U.S. Senate debate between Utah Republican Mike Lee and Democrat Sam Granato.