SSN rental

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Dr. James J. O'Donnell" <provost () georgetown edu>
Date: June 7, 2005 8:57:28 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: SSN rental


Dave,

Interesting piece just posted on NYTimes about Mexican nationals renting
their SSN to folks who don't have one:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/business/07immigrant.html

Makes perfect sense once you read it.  The bit that really caught me  
was this, though:

    Each year, Social Security receives millions of W-2 earning
    statements with names or numbers that do not match its records.
    Nine million poured in for 2002, many of them just simple
    mistakes. In response the agency sends hundreds of thousands of
    letters asking employers to correct the information. These letters
    can provoke the firing of the offending worker.

Now total employment in May 2005 (Bureau of Labor Statistics website)  
was
141M.  That means there's about a 6% error rate in using SSN's for their
primary purpose, to identify taxpayers and associate their SS  
withholding
reliably with their name.  Just me, or is that a little further from  
five
nines reliability than you'd hope for?

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.


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