| MARCH 2007 P2 MONEY
QUIZ ANSWERS
1. The social security program began with the 'Social Security Act of 1935'. What was it originally called? Economic Security Act. The term 'Social Security' was coined in the US by activist Abraham Epstein, who led a group called the American Association for Social Security.
2. While the Social Security Act did not specify the use of numbered cards, it did mandate the formation of a record-keeping plan. In 1936, the first group of Social Security Numbers (SSN) were assigned and distributed through __________? local post offices.
Since the Social Security Board did not have a network of field offices in late 1936, it contracted with the U.S. Post Office to distribute and assign the first batch of SSN's through its 45,000 local post offices around the country.
3. No one knows for sure who got the first SSN because cards weren't issued at the start of the program. A more 'scientific' approach to the start of the cards began when the first block of records was complete and the head of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Division of Accounting Operations pulled off the top record. He designated it as 'the first official card'. What was the SSN? 055-09-0001.
It belonged to John David Sweeney, Jr., age 23 of New Rochelle, New York.
4. SSN's were grouped by the first three digits of the number, called the 'area number', and assigned geographically starting in the northeast and moving across the country to the northwest. What state was assigned the lowest 'area number'? New Hampshire.
Even though Maine is the most northeasterly of states, the lowest 'area number' was assigned to New Hampshire. This was apparently done so that SNN 001-01-0001 could be given to NH's favorite son, Social Security Board Chairman John G. Winant, who was also the former 3-time Governor of NH. He later turned down the offer for that number.
5. Ever wonder who got the SSN number 001-01-0001? It’s a real number that was issued to __________. Grace D. Owen. Social Security Board Chairman John G. Winant declined to have SSN 001-01-0001 registered to him. It was then offered to John Campbell, the Federal Bureau of Old Age Benefits' Regional Representative of the Boston Region. He declined it also. It was finally decided not to offer this SSN as a token of esteem, but instead to issue it to the first applicant from New Hampshire. Grace D. Owen of Concord, NH who applied for her number on November 24, 1936.
6. During the Social Security program's start-up period (between January 1937 and December 1939), the SSA only made one-time, lump-sum payments. Ernest Ackerman was the first recipient of Social Security benefits. How much was paid to him? 17 cents.
The first person to receive monthly benefits was Ida May Fuller of Vermont, who retired in 1939 and started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65. In the 3 years she worked under the program, she contributed a total of $24.75. Her first benefit check was for $22.54 and she went on collecting for 35 years, until 1975, when she died at age 100. In this time she collected a total of $22,888.92!
7. In 1936, the designer of the original Social Security card was paid $60 for his work. What was his name? Fred Happel.
In 1985, Mr. Happel's surviving niece donated the original artwork for the card to the SSA's History Room in Baltimore.
8. The most misused SSN of all time was 078-05-1120. Over the course of 40 years, more than 40,000 people used secretary _________________'s SSN as their own. It was a demonstration card placed in what product and sold in department stores across the country?
Hilda Schrader.
In 1937, Hilda's boss Douglas Patterson, vice president and treasurer of the wallet manufacturing E.H. Ferree Company, decided to include a demonstration Social Security card in the new line of wallets. To make the false card a better representation, he included a real SSN, his secretary's. The display cards were smaller than actual cards and had the word 'specimen' written on them, but many people took the number to be their own SSN anyway!
9. The two middle digits of the SSN are referred to as the 'group number'. What does the 'group number' refer to? nothing.
People have misconstrued this 'group number' to refer to their race. This is simply not true. There is a theory that the two middle digits can be used to identify a person's ethnic background. This is debunked as an urban legend on snopes.com as well as on the Social Security Administration's website. They have no special geographic or data significance but merely serve to break the number into conveniently sized blocks for orderly issuance.
10. What are the last four numbers of a SSN referred to? serial numbers.
They represent a straight numerical sequence of digits from 0001-9999 within the group.
BONUS. Are SSN's recycled after a person's death? No.
SSN's are not recycled. Upon an individual's death, the number is removed from the active files and is not reused. Recycling numbers might become an issue someday, but not any time soon - statisticians say the nine-digit SSN allows for approximately one billion possible combinations!
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