SSN History

The SSN is the official taxpayer identification number.

SSNs, or Social Security numbers, were created during the New Deal and were first issued in 1936, according to U.S. Social Security Administration. The Social Security Board had no way to distribute Social Security cards initially, so it contracted with the local post offices to get them in the hands of U.S. citizens. A handful of the 45,000 local post offices also were used to create the cards.

Origins

On June 8, 1934, President Roosevelt announced to Congress his intention to create a program for social security. A committee was established, and both the House and the Senate passed bills; the Social Security Act passed on Aug. 5, 1935. A bipartisan Social Security Board was formed that was tasked with providing employers, employees and the general public with information on how income was to be reported, what benefits the act would include and how they would be provided.

Policy Revisions

In 1962, the Internal Revenue Service adopted the Social Security number as the official taxpayer identification number. In 1965, with the creation of Medicare, it became necessary for most individuals 65 and older to have an SSN. By 1990, age limits that had been previously set at 5, 2 and later 1 year old were abolished completely. As of 1991, any child listed as a dependent on a parent's tax return requires an SSN.

Present Day

Social Security numbers have become the integrative unique identifier for many of our government benefits and record-keeping. A SSN is used to track income tax, retirement, Social Security benefits for spouses and children, Medicare and unemployment. With more and more information being made available on the Internet today, applying for many Social Security benefits now can be done online.

Digits Defined

The nine-digit SSN was established to give each citizen a unique identifying number that also would reflect the geographic location where the number was assigned. The number has three parts: the area number, the group number and the serial number. The area numbers, the first three digits of the SSN, represent the geographical region from where it was assigned, with the lower numbers originating from the East Coast getting larger as you move west. Group numbers, the middle two digits, do not reflect any particular sequence or location. They were assigned as any number between 01 and 99, with a sequencing of these numbers for each state. The serial numbers are assigned for each of the group numbers within each state, using a sequencing of 0001 through 9999.

The first Social Security number was issued to John D. Sweney Jr. or New Rochelle, New York. The lowest number (001-01-0001) was issued to Grace Dorothy Owen of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1936.

The SSN Card

Fred Happel of Albany, New York designed the first Social Security card and was compensated $60 for his work. Between 1937 and 2007, the SSN card was revised 34 times. Early revisions had to do with improving the security of the card and making it more difficult to copy or counterfeit. Changes also were made in 2004 that reflected the Social Security Administration's new policy that stated cardholders should not to carry the card with them. The statement "DO NOT CARRY IT WITH YOU" was added to the front of the card, replacing the anti-copy "VOID" pattern previously added to prevent counterfeiting.

References

• Social Security Administration: Social Security - A Brief History

Resources

• Social Security Administration