WORCESTER – There are currently close to 324 million people living in the United States. Goldie Michelson can now say she was around before any of them.

The Worcester resident officially became the oldest living American last Thursday, when the former record-holder, Susannah Mushatt Jones, passed away in New York at the age of 116.

Ms. Michelson, 113, is also the oldest living Jewish person in the world, said Mary Richardson, Clark University’s director of planned giving, who spoke on behalf of Ms. Michelson and her daughter, Renee Minsky. Neither Ms. Michelson nor Ms. Minsky were able to comment Monday, she said.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps track of supercentenarian records across the globe, Ms. Michelson barely edges out New Jersey’s Adele Dunlap by 126 days for the new American title of oldest person. Ms. Michelson is technically still not the oldest U.S. native in the world; Marie-Josephine Gaudette, who currently lives in Italy, is 114 years old, according to the Gerontology Research Group’s latest database.

The oldest person on Earth, meanwhile, is Italian Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, who is 116, the group reports.

Ms. Michelson, whose health has slipped in recent years, likely did not know about her accomplishment on Monday, Ms. Richardson said; her daughter, who lives in Maine, said she planned to come down to tell her soon. Ms. Minsky, at least, “certainly is (excited),” she said.

Born in Russia in 1902, Ms. Michelson moved to Worcester with her family when she was 2 years old, and has spent nearly her entire life here. She still resides in her longtime home on the city’s west side, Ms. Richardson said Monday.

“I live next door to the oldest American,” said state Rep. John J. Mahoney, another resident on her street, who marveled at the odds. “It’s like I won the lottery for neighbors.”

Ms. Michelson was already around 94 when Mr. Mahoney moved into the neighborhood nearly two decades ago. He recalled their first interaction was her ringing his doorbell and asking him, “are your parents home?”

“She’s just a nice neighbor - we’d go over now and again to say hello,” he said, adding in her healthier days she could often be seen strolling through the neighborhood. “She was always in amazing condition for her age.”

In recent years, however, neighbors said Ms. Michelson has had to become more homebound. “The people who surround her here, we all know her,” said another resident, who wished to go unnamed. “We’ve just kind of watched out for her from a distance.

“She’s a really unique lady, going to school when most women didn’t go to school, and getting a degree.”

After graduating from Women's College of Brown University, which later became Pembroke College, in 1924, Ms. Michelson went on to obtain her master’s degree in sociology from Clark in 1936. Her thesis, titled “A Citizenship Survey of Worcester Jewry,” explored the assimilation of Jewish immigrants in the city.

Ms. Michelson continued to be involved in Jewish women’s groups in the region, Ms. Richardson said – “that was a very important part of her life.” She and her husband, David Michelson, who passed away in 1974, also continue to support theater arts at Clark through their David and Goldie Michelson Drama Fund; the university’s Michelson Theater is named in their honor.