Morbidity

Homer commented here that he went to the Social Security Death Index and found out at 387 people who were born on his birthdate have already died. I just looked up my own birthdate and saw that 125 people born on my birthdate have died.

There’s something incredibly depressing about seeing these people’s names and death dates.

7 thoughts on “Morbidity

  1. Wow. I’m younger than you and 2 more of my birthdate cohort have died than yours.

    I wonder how extensive this database is, though, since they only have 81 million records and I would have thought that way more than 81 million Americans have died since Social Security was enacted.

  2. Daniel, the database contains all deaths from the late 1960s onwards. The deaths from the 1930s to late 1960s, in most cases, have not been added- although that might happen sometime in the future.

  3. The number for my birthday is 112. Oh, and by narrowing the search a bit, I saw that someone with my birthday had died on their 30th birthday. OK, I’m gonna stop looking at that for now!

  4. 435 for my birthday, with 10 of those SSNs having been in Virginia (where mine was issued).

    But I’m still alive. (Ah, though now I have Jonathan Coulton & GLaDOS’s tune running through my head. “I’m doing science and I’m still alive. I feel fantastic and I’m still alive. While you’re dying I’ll be still alive. And when you’re dead I will be still alive. Still alive. Still alive.”)

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