THAT'S the point I was understanding from StarTraveler's post.
Because my mother never worked outside of the home after marriage, she was not eligible for SS. But of course, she could get my father’s SS. My point was that if they have a method of checking for re-marriage, then it seems they could do something similar just to verify that the people they’re sending checks to are still alive. There have certainly been enough stories of family members not informing them of the death of a SS recipient & living off the monthly checks.