You are required to get a Social Security number before you work your first job. Parents will need a number for kids to claim a deduction on their taxes. Officially, if you are 18 and earn money, you have to get a number because the employer has to use it to report their income. You can’t opt out of the Social Security system. Social Security is the name given to a host of programs. Technically, it is old age, disability, survivor’s insurance, supplemental security income for the disabled or the elderly. Employees and employers are required to pay Social Security taxes. Most of the money collected goes to pay current recipients.

Your Social Security number is primarily to track your income throughout your life to determine retirement benefits. The numbers are not assigned sequentially or consecutively, they are assigned regionally and in batches. The numbers have already been assigned in more than 400 million different sequences. The fist three are the area, which was originally by state, low for east, higher for west, now it’s by zip code so it still generally falls by mailing address, next two are the group, from 01 to 99, which just breaks the area down further so they can get more numbers, last four are the serial numbers, 1-9999, consecutively. It will be several generations before they run out of numbers. (One Billion combinations) When people die, the number becomes inactive, and is not re-used. You can’t tell how old someone is by their Social Security number.

The first Social Security number was officially issued to a John David Sweeney, age 23. Mr. Sweeney died at 61 in 1974 and never collected a dime. His number was 055-09-0001. Grace D. Owen, of Concord, NH got 001-01-0001. Ernest Ackerman first to receive a one-time lump sum of 17 cents in 1937. Ida May Fuller was the first to get monthly benefits, She paid in $24.75, her first check was $22.54, went on collecting for 35 years, a total of $22,888.92 until she died at age 100 in 1975. On October 15th, 2007, the first of the baby boomers applied for Social Security. Kathy Casey-Kirschling turns 62 on January 1st, 2008.

The law was passed in 1935 and was called the Economic Security Act. Benefits began being paid in January 1937 and only the “breadwinner” was covered. In 1939, survivor and children’s benefits were added. Then in 1956, they added disability benefits, added Medicare in 1965. The IRS recognized the Social Security number as the taxpayer ID in 1962.

By the way, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2017. Sorry to end this with such a buzz-kill, but you’d better start saving some of your working income.

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