Yep. I got my social security number in 1986 when I was ten years old, and it was because my parents needed it under the new law in order to claim me for an income tax deduction.
AFAIK, everyone else is also correct. There is no law requiring anyone to have a social security number. But it will be required if you work or bank. I suppose we could siphon up a scenario where someone who was born wealthy and keeps cash under their mattress could go their entire lives without getting an SSN, but it is very unlikely. However, just to exist and not have one? Perfectly legal.
Certain groups don’t deal with SS. The Amish and Mennonites refuse to collect it or pay into it. Certain ones may or may not get the number associated with it.
My memory is from the late 60s. My dad brought home a stack of Social Security cards for probably seven of us, all consecutively numbered. I’m not sure if he stopped at the Social Security office or what; I just know that I still have mine.
All of my siblings and my SSNs are consecutive because we got them in 1986. I signed mine with a blue felt tip pen in the big block letters of a 5 year old. I’m stuck using that signiture for the rest of my life.
I remember seeing the envelope my Social Security card came in (my parents kept the whole package) and it was addressed to a place that we moved from in 1984 when i was 3. I asked my mom why I had gotten a SSN so early, and she said something about getting savings bonds in my name. I remember since I was young routinely getting savings bonds in the mail that people bought for me, and my dad later put a lot of work into figuring out when to cash them in, so I think he got me started in savings bonds when I was really young. (I also remember being given investments as a Christmas present. It’s like getting cash, except you can’t spend it. My dad and his brothers were all financial nerds in some sense.)
I remember completing a card to apply for my SSN at the local Post Office in Brooklyn, NY in 1960. It was the size of a large index card, I gave it to the clerk in the post office and later received my SS card in the mail. I don’t know when the post office stopped providing that service.
Here’s a link that tells when it first started. I can’t find anything as to when it stopped. Social Security History (ssa.gov)
As some of you may know, railroad workers do not participate in Social Security. They have their own government retirement fund, the Railroad Retirement Board, which actually pre-dates Social Security.
I would assume, therefore, that they don’t have social security numbers. This thread makes me wonder what railroad workers do when they encounter one of those situations where you are asked for your SSN–filing taxes, for example. Anyone happen to know?
I imagine that these days, a lot of new railroad workers already have an SSN anyway, either because they got one when they were born, or registered for one when they got their first after school job when they were 16. You don’t really know, in either of those cases, that you’re eventually going to end up working for the railroads.
I’m not sure why you would assume that railroad workers didn’t have social security numbers simply because they don’t participate in Social Security. Nobody knows with enough certainty that their only job is going to be working for the railroad ( or a state/local government that doesn’t participate in SS or…) that they would forgo applying for a number at least by the time they are seeking work. After all, even if you hope to work for the railroad, you’ll need that SS number in order to take a job at a trucking company while you wait for the railroad job, And that’s assuming you have no other reason to need a SS number before then - although I’m old enough that my parents didn’t need an SS number to claim me on their taxes, I did need it to open a bank account when.
Correct. But some railroad workers have worked at jobs, either before or after their railroad career, in which they had SS taxes withheld. In my volunteer tax preparation gig in a railroad town, I see a number of clients who receive both SS and Railroad Retirement benefits.
Makes sense, and I should have thought about the fact that most people wouldn’t necessarily work for the railroads and nothing else. But as the link the Falchion provided shows, it does appear as if Social Security at one time had a procedure for treating RRB workers somewhat differently when it came to assigning them Social Security numbers.
The IRS issues what’s essentially a tax-payer substitute for an SSN, although the rules regarding the program have changed considerably over the years.
My MIL’s only job was 35 years at the International Monetary Fund, an agency of the UN. Foreign nationals residing in the U.S. who work for the IMF do not participate in Social Security or Medicare, nor pay any U.S. income taxes. However, she became a U.S. citizen after her retirement and must pay income tax on her pension. She had to get an SSN to be able to file her tax returns. (There are no withholdings from her pension, so the IMF still doesn’t care if she has an SSN or not.)
Therefore lack of participation in SSN does not imply lack of SSN. Q.E.D.
Side note: Social Security numbers can actually change. My future wife came here to Hawaii for school 30 years ago, from Thailand. Since she was on a scholarship, she had to pay taxes on that and so was issued a Social Security number. Her card was stamped that it was not valid for employment, otherwise it looked just like any other card.
Then we came back to Hawaii five years ago, and they issued the wife a new SS number and card along with her green card. That was the first time I’d ever heard of a number changing, but when she reported the new number to Immigration, they were not surprised.
Not only can they change, they can be duplicated in rare circumstances. I did work for the Dept. of Education on their account management system for student loans. We had a couple of these oddball cases where two people with the same last name, first initial, and birthday were issued the same SSN. One case was twins.
IRS Agent: Ma’am, your tax return last year claimed two dependents. Your return this year claims ten. How can that be?
Lady: My cats had kittens.
IRS Agent: You can’t claim pets as dependents!
Lady: Young man, you must be wrong. I’ve been claiming their parents for years.
I wonder if the SSN office gets many applications for SSN numbers for pets. Or, maybe even for inanimate objects - cars, buildings, etc.
