In the United States, a Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2) of the Social Security Act, codified as 42 U.S.C. ยง 405(c)(2). The number is issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration, an independent agency of the United States government. Its primary purpose is to track individuals for Social Security purposes.
A Social Security number may be obtained by applying on Form SS-5, "Application for A Social Security Number Card".
Over time, the number has been used for more diverse purposes than simply taxes, essentially making it a de facto national identification number.
Read more about Social Security Number: History, Purpose and Use, Types of Social Security Cards, Identity Theft, Structure, Exhaustion and Re-use, Valid SSNs, SSNs Invalidated By Use in Advertising
Famous quotes containing the words social, security and/or number:
“If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery, in impoverishment.”
—Michael Harrington (1928–1989)
“The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who, on grounds of decorum and morality, avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid leaves with disgust.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)