Are Social Security numbers “recycled”? If not, then why is my number lower than my (older) boyfriend’s? If you add the current population (now about 250,000,000) to the number of Americans who have died since 1935 (when Social Security began), wouldn’t the resulting number exceed nine digits in an S.S. number, proving my little theory about recycling? OK, Cecil, tell me I’m full of blarney, but what do the numbers represent? –Lisa W., New York
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Cecil wishes he could tell you Social Security numbers were as fraught with meaning as the driver’s license numbers issued by some states, which encode everything but your IQ, but no such luck. Prior to 1973 the first three digits indicated the state of the issuing Social Security office. Since 1973 the first three digits “are determined by the zip code of the mailing address shown on the application for a Social Security number,” it says here. But it’s still basically done by states. The remaining digits are simply a serial number. To date recycling hasn’t been necessary, but more on this in a moment.
004-007 ME 681-690 NC 416-424 AL 503-504 SD 531-539 WA
050-134 NY 261-267 FL 676-679 AR 520 WY 575-576 HI
223-231 VA 362-386 MI 627-645 TX 526-527 AZ 596-599 PR
The question one might ask is: Why should a Social Security number mean anything–why not just make it a straight serial number? No reason, from what I can gather; it’s mainly a holdover from the old days. Before 1973, social security numbers were issued by local field offices. To prevent duplication, states were allocated blocks of numbers. In 1973, number issuance was centralized at Social Security Administration HQ in Baltimore. The feds could easily have switched to the straight serial method at this point but didn’t, apparently out of a primordial bureaucratic instinct that once a system, always a system.
