who was assigned the first social security number
Social Security number On November 24, 1936, 1,074 of the nation's 45,000 post offices were designated "typing centers" to type up Social Security cards that were then sent to Washington, D.C. On December 1, 1936, as part of the publicity campaign for the new program, Joseph L. Fay of the Social Security Administration selected a record from the top of the first stack of 1,000 records and announced that the first Social Security number in history was assigned to John David Sweeney, Jr., of New Rochelle, New York.[5][6]
National identification number In the United States, a Selective Service Number must be applied for by all male citizens turning age 18. An optional national identity number is the Social Security number (SSN), a nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents. Its purpose was to identify individuals for the purposes of Social Security, but it is now also used to track individuals for taxation purposes. There is no legal requirement to have a SSN if it is not required for Social Security or taxation purposes, but in practice one is required for many other purposes, for example to open a bank account or apply for a driving license, so that nearly all U.S. citizens and permanent residents have one. The SSN has therefore become a de facto national identification number,[11] despite the fact that originally it was expressly not for this purpose[12], and in fact a valid SSN can be easily guessed, as they are issued serially[13]