I have one that’s just kind of been laying around since I was, eh, 12 or something. If I needed it, I’d just go dig around in some drawers at home.
Only once in the past many years have I been told that I needed to prove my SSN. It was to get a building pass. I brought a recent pay stub because they used to have Socials on them, but I guess the format was changed a few years earlier and I just didn’t notice.
So they guy asks me to show my ID and verification of my SSN, and I give him my drivers license and the pay stub. He looks at it for a while, and says he can’t find my number. I look at it, and damn, it’s not there. Then he says, “Well, if I know how much you’re paid a year, I think that will suffice for verifying your identity.” And that was that.
I use my passport for times that I need something more official than a drivers license for ID and citizenship purposes.
I’ve not seen my SS card for several decades. I agree that for such an Extremely Important Document™ it was pathetically flimsy.
The Nevada Dept. of Motor Vehicles once insisted on proof of SS number to give me a driver’s license. They’d accept a paystub or photocopy of 1040(!) instead of the SS card, but I had nothing. (I went to library, got a blank 1040, filled it out randomly but with my correct SSN, photocopied it, crumpled it a bit … and got my driver’s license! )
Is that easy to do? When I applied for SS (I’m 64 now) I asked how to get a replacement card and they referred me to some horrendous procedure, requiring the SSN’s of both my parents’ – long deceased – etc. I abandoned this process when a friend told me SS card wasn’t needed for benefits even though my e-mail to SS made clear I wanted the SS card replacement just to apply for benefits. :smack:
Obviously I’ve had a passport since I was a small child (how else did I come overseas)? And the social security card is also kind of a mark of pride; i.e., I am a true and honest citizen, look, I even have a social security card!
But all that aside, I’ve needed it recently for the following things:
Getting this job
applying to college
using it to get a replacement for my passport (my mom lost it).
and I just needed it again to get into a work-study program at school
That’s four times, two of which are just in the last three years.
Well, I’ve only had 2 jobs in the last 20 years or so. Regardless, nobody ever asked to see a Social Security card. I filled in the number on the applications, and that seemed to be enough.
“Other proof of citizenship”? The Social Security card doesn’t prove citizenship, as permanent resident aliens may have them. It is proof of employment authorization, but a passport is even better, as it’s also proof of identity.
Thinking back over quite a long period of time, and I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to produce the physical card. Not at 13 different colleges/universities, not at any job (including ones where I was bonded/had massive background checks), not ever. Just knowing the number was sufficient.
Mine is in our safety deposit box. I don’t remember the last time I’ve had to show it, but I’ve had a passport since I was 9, over 50 years ago.
It used to be easier to apply for one. When I was in college I got one for our dorm lounge, as the first step in a hack to get the lounge admitted to MIT. Never went further, alas.
Mine is in a desk drawer in a hard plastic sleeve, the sort you’d put a baseball card in.
Nominally the sleeve is to protect it but really it just makes the card “bigger” & thicker and thus easier to find among the other items when I need to find it.
I don’t have a SS card. I did when I was a kid, but it long ago fell apart. I’ve never been asked for it. I have a passport, a drivers license and a birth certificate.
Mine is intact without lamination. I’ve had to produce it occasionally but not very often. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get a replacement, you could maybe even do it online or over the phone. I applied for Social Security over the phone and just gave them my number.
I keep mine in a pocket of my billfold. It’s unlaminated and I’ve had it since the mid-'60s, and while fully intact it’s a pretty sad looking little piece of paper by now. My signature is almost completely gone and even my name, which was typed in by the government at the time, is growing faint.
Mine lives in a drawer. I got a new card with my new name when I got married, which was 20+ yrs ago, and the card’s not laminated but is in pretty good shape.
I needed it AND my passport AND my TN driver’s license just the other day to get a new SC license and register my car & truck.
I keep mine intact by putting it in my wallet and leaving it there. I haven’t lost my wallet or dropped it in a lake, so it’s in about the same condition it was in when I got it in 1975.
What is this phobia that government agencies have about people laminating their pwecious magic cards?
Back in the day when drivers licenses were paper, they also were illegal to laminate. It said on the card, and I think it was also a real law in the Vehicle Code somewhere (IIRC). My card, at the time, was years old and tattered at the edges, so I put scotch tape (the dull matte kind) all around the edges.
One day I had to show it at the DMV for some reason, and the clerk started giving me shit for “laminating” my card, threatening that I could be arrested. I gave her shit right back and demanded to have the office manager come discuss it with me. The manager didn’t seem to see any problem with it.
As for my social security card, it’s been in my succession of wallets for 30+ years, [del]without lamination[/del] … Uh, let me revise that. Having just looked at it, I see that I’ve covered the whole card, front and back, with scotch tape, if you call that “lamination”. I can’t see anywhere that it says not to. As often as I have to show it, which is approximately never, it’s not going to matter.
)