Absolutely correct. Employers are not legally allowed to require applicants to present a Social Security card or any specific document on the list of approved documents.
The lists of approved documents are included on the I-9 form itself; employees are required to produce one List A document or one document each from List B and List C. If you present, for example, a valid U.S. passport, which is a List A document and does not include a Social Security number, the employer cannot demand that you also produce a Social Security card. Employers can be, and have been, fined thousands of dollars for violating these rules.
Yes, you don’t need your SS card for I9 verification. You could use your passport. If you don’t have a passport, then you could use your driver’s license (or various equivalents from column B) and something else from column C. Column C could be your SS card, or your birth certificate, or a bunch of other random things that most people don’t have.
So if you don’t have a birth certificate, or a passport, then you do need your SS card, because that’s the only Column C identification you have.
Page 9 of this PDF explains the various acceptable methods of verification:
I think I used it to get my first passport 20 or so years ago. It’s in a bin of some miscellaneous paperwork. Every once in a while I’ll be searching for something and see it. Doubt I’ll ever need it for anything.
Last week I had to provide a social security card to complete an I-9 for my new job. Fortunately I had a new card (old one was too beat up) because I needed a Social security card to get my hack license (which I haven’t gotten yet due to the other job coming through).
Only time I ever needed the actual card was in 2014 when I won $800 in the State lottery. The bank had to see it along with a photo ID before they would release the funds. Luckily, after many, many years of not needing it, I actually knew where it was.
Yes, I’ve gotten a job, and no I haven’t needed my card.
I can’t remember the last time I saw it - maybe 40 years ago? My husband still has his original card from 1954 or so, though. He is more organized than I.
However, if you are NOT hired for a clearly illegal reason, it may well be a great time to make a huge fuss. You probably don’t really want to be working for those people anyway, but the financial settlement you might collect from them sure could come in handy.
And if you didn’t have a driver’s license, you would have needed your SS card to get it. Then you’re in catch-22 hell. Good luck.
I knew a guy who needed his birth certificate to get his license. But the county wouldn’t give him his birth certificate without ID. They went back and forth for several months before some county bureaucrat allowed him to get a birth certificate using a signed affidavit from his personal doctor confirming he was him.
Personally, I have needed my SS card several times a decade. It’s required to get a driver’s license in IL, so I need it at least every four years. I needed it to get a passport. And I’ve needed it for every job I’ve had since I was 16. Luckily, I have all these forms when I need them.
But there are complicated interdependencies that I’m afraid of, that I’ve seen happen to other people. Like needing a driver’s license to get a birth certificate and vice versa. How does one start that process? With some places, you’re lucky, and they’ll let anyone get a copy of your birth certificate, so it doesn’t matter. But what if you’re not so lucky? That’s part of my issue with voter ID laws. Even if they give you the documents you need for free (which they don’t – even if the ID is free, the birth certificate, passport and social security card aren’t), then some people still have to go through months of bureaucratic hell to get the things they need to vote. And poor people don’t have time for that. When the choice is between putting food on the table and calling off work for hours and days at a time to wrestle with the state in order to get the documents you need to vote, many many people will choose to feed their kids over voting.
Bah, some HR flack misread a form and tell you you NEED a SSN card? You’d quit for that? And, good luck suing, not gonna happen. They’d just say you misunderstood.
I have no idea where mine is. If I ever had it, I haven’t seen it in 30 years. No problems with jobs - my passport or birth certificate has always been fine. I’ve never had anyone ask me for it specifically, although I’m sure it’s been on the approved list.
If Annie-Xmas’s company maintains an official policy that they refuse to hire anyone and everyone who presents valid documents but not the one particular valid document, that’s not a misunderstanding and that’s not just some HR flack. Moreover, if they refused to hire you, you don’t have anything to quit from, and without a job a nice civil monetary settlement would come in handy.
Any such lawsuit would be filed in the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer in the U.S. Dept of Justice, and heard before an administrative law judge in that office. Yes, such cases can result in the award of back pay (that is, the income the person not hired would have earned if they’d been hired when they presented valid documents) as well as civil penalties.
When I moved to OH 10 years ago, they required my SS card to transfer my license. I had an ex-GF who liked to laminate things for some reason. She had laminated my SS card one day while I was at work, as she thought that was being nice.
So, my SS card was considered void. I could not get a drivers license until I got a new SS card, which required ordering a certified copy of my birth certificate and taking it to the SSA office.
I am also under the impression that employers require SS and birth certificate. I have been self-employed for the past decade. Somehow I lost my birth certificate and SS card again- I think it was when I was going through a rough time when I went back to school and sold some plasma (they required those documents, for sure). I think I misplaced it when I hid the evidence of those transactions.
Interesting timing, as I was considering buying a birth certificate and getting another SS card today. I don’t have a passport, and was thinking about getting one (that requires a birth certificate and ID but not SS card). I’d also been thinking about looking at jobs, as I have a business with an unworkable partnership situation that I might be better off walking away from.
ETA: In the US, many more people have SS cards than passports. I think maybe a lot of people getting by without the SS card have passports, and it’s a one or the other type of deal in many transactions.
They can refuse to hire you for not wearing a tu-tu. Anything other than race, religion, etc. If they like they can say “our policy is that we see a SSN card” and they are totally in the clear.
Did a bit of a search of SS regs, policy etc. Could always look further, but was unable to find ANYTHING stating that a SS card is required for any particular reason. Closest I came was in an SSA FAQ that stated:
As far is SS is required, you need a number and proof of identity, but not the card.
