S Folinsky

As an aside, SSN's will now be issued randomly as per this announcement of the SSA.

paulmcls

Hi, slightly off the subject but...

I got a real SSN in 1976. Although on holiday, I gave a real address and went to the local office in Altadena, CA.

Is the SSN still valid?

is there anything I can do with it to help any application for working in the USA?

Thanks...

Paul

discoviking

A SSN is assigned to you for life, so yes - it is still 'valid'.

A SSN is not work authorization, though - it is just the key to your Social Security records. If you are not legally residing in the US now, you would still need to go through the same process as anyone else in order to obtain authorization to reside and work in the US.

The only difference would be that if you at some point in the future find yourself legally residing and working in the US, you would use the SSN already assigned to you when you file your tax returns and other related forms, you would not need to apply for a new one.

md95065

Actually there is nothing "random" about it - they are just changing the rules for generating new numbers so that they can use up the ranges of numbers that are currently unassigned.

I note, with interest, that the group number 666 will continue to be unassigned - presumably to make it less obvious that the social security number is the mark of the beast

Steve_

As pointed out, it is always valid, e.g. if you need to file a tax return in the US or claim social security benefits, however it has to be authorized for employment.

The SSA and other agencies are very coy about old SSNs and what it says in their database about them, i.e. the ones that pre-date the "VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION" moniker, or INS as it was. I can't remember when they started adding this onto them, somewhere in the early 1990s but they really only got their act together on it post-9/11, somewhere around 2003.

Nowadays when you enter in a work authorized category it goes into the SSA database automatically, takes about ten days to get there and you show up as work authorized (if you haven't got a card, this means you have to wait until you get it, otherwise the SSA takes longer to process the application).

Also the form SS-5 has been revised and basically at this point any change in your work authorized status has to be notified to them, so if you adjust status for example you have to notify them.

The problem with this whole thing is what about the old SSNs that pre-date all this? I assume in their database the relevant fields are just blank, which is why in Arizona when they started requiring E-verify it came up with lots of "unknowns" and people crammed into the SSA office to file SS-5s, even though they were US citizens.

Sen. Schumer keeps going on about biometric SSN cards, which would require them all to be reissued, which of course would mean you'd have to go to the SSA to have the biometrics done so at that point they could check your legal status.

But my personal opinion is that there is no real way of detecting you if you have a pre-1990s-ish SSN card, they just don't know unless you tell them. I'm not even sure if E-verify will detect them because you can't detect information that is unavailable.

Of course you need secondary ID to work in the US, in order to complete the I-9 form the employer gives you. Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah require most employers to use E-verify, but a lot of States require it for companies that hold contracts with public agencies.

S Folinsky

FWIW -- now that E-verify allows self-checking, I ran my own name through it. My SSN was issued in 1965 and my card is before they used the blue security paper.

I came up as authorized to work. I don't know if the fact that I am a veteran helped.

avanutria

They let it be used in the last section, though. I knew a guy at college with 666 in his number - the college used part of the social as the student number so it showed up a lot. He got all kinds of teasing about it.

S Folinsky

FWIW -- many universities would use SSN's as a student identifier. For those who did not have SSN's, the school would assign a student ID number in the xxx-xx-xxxx format of SSN's drawn from the pool of numbers never used for an actual SSN. Of course, the school form would designate the reference as a "social security number."

When I was in practice, I ran into this several times.

avanutria

Yeah - supposedly we could go to the registrar's office and request a random number in lieu of using the SSN but in practice I never met anyone who'd actually managed to get this done.

zerlesen

I had this happen to me, and was horrified to discover that my first H1b petition had been filed with my meaningless student ID number in place of my actual SSN (which I hadn't received until about a month into grad school). There were various other errors as well. Of course, I didn't get to see any of this until after the petition had been approved.

The school I was at did eventually decide that using SSNs to identify students was a bad idea.

tht

Ran mine, and my SSN was issued in 2010 after I got my L1A. Came back authorized. I went to get my updated SSN card about 3 weeks after I got my GC, I happened to go on my birthday and I really threw the lady processing the card off.. she thought I had filed in the wrong date, after a few minutes she figured out it was my birthday, said happy birthday and I was on my way.

Steve_

Well according to research done for the USG, E-verify is not particularly accurate, but I just don't know what metric they would use to determine whether it is or not? Obviously if you're in the US illegally and using an SSN issued to you that comes up as valid you're not going to tell them, so how do they know?

Steve_

I've just had a play with that self verify thing, there's a powerpoint presentation on their site that shows all the pages.

Basically if you have an old SSN and their database is blank, it's supposed to come up with "US citizenship cannot be verified" and it basically prints off a form letter that you're supposed to take to the SSA office with your passport or whatever to have the database updated.

Or alternatively, someone actually made a note at some point of what your status was and it just says you aren't authorized to work, and if you think you are, go down to the SSA office and update your info.

So to answer the second poster, having an old SSN means nothing as far as work authorization goes, even if you were thinking of doing it illegally. Although I'm sure there must be loads of people who stayed illegally years ago who are using their SSNs, because obviously most States don't require e-verify and even if they do, the employer isn't required to go back and check all their existing staff.

Expect billions to be wasted on biometric SSN cards shortly...

What I find fascinating is that in Canada by comparison, an employee is not required to provide ID with their SIN card, although you can ask to see it, but even if they provide it, you cannot record it. A very different mindset.