Why YSK: If you are a US Resident, don’t lose your Social Security card more than 10 times, or else you might need to respawn 💀
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
In accordance with §7213 of the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act of 2004 and 20 CFR 422.103, the number of replacement Social Security cards per person is generally limited to three per calendar year and ten in a lifetime.
Why. The hell. Are we supposed to keep sacred a piece of paper that only has 9 precious numbers we can’t choose, but that will permanently identify us, that will deteriorate over time, we’re not supposed to laminate or protect it, and we only have limited replacements!? So dumb…
Got rained on when I went to a new job about 10 years ago, had it in my wallet so they could copy it for new hire bs. The colors bled and the blue stained other parts of the card. I never got it replaced but seriously, it isn’t even as durable as a dollar bill.
That part is actually by design. The thought being that if you lose it that it will be more likely to be naturally destroyed than have the time to be found by someone with nefarious aims.
The 10 max rule (which allows for exceptions) was from 2004 when presumably they assumed most people did not have reason to be walking around with theirs all the time. I don’t know why it was put in place, other than a cursory search seeming to be antiterrorism bs, but 10 is kinda a lot for a document you generally don’t need to carry with you and don’t need very often in general. Probably super difficult for people that struggle with housing though.
You can use plastic sleeve covers, just nothing permanent like laminate. You can’t scan it with laminate.
“scan it”!? They don’t have barcodes on them, do they? I haven’t replaced mine in a while, but it certainly didn’t…
Why would you need to scan it? And why wouldn’t you be able to scan a laminated document? The scan might look worse but I doubt it would be that bad.
Murrica
It’s fucking absurd. It is the flimsiest piece of paper imaginable too (unless it’s been changed recently).
Also, I’m pretty sure you have to pay a fee to replace it, so why the fuck do they limit it?
For decades i’ve had mine in perfect shape. I don’t understand what’s so hard in terms of protecting the original.
If your house is on fire then sure, you need a replacement. If your house catches fire, gets drowned by a biblical flood, has an earthquake swallow it, a volcano erupts underneath it, and has a meteorite strike it - all at different times, all destroying your SS card, you can still get replacements.
10 is enough. If someone is going to lose it more than that they should probably not keep one. It’s not like you need it for anything, you just need the number. A passport or state real ID covers identification.
Why? Seems like a pretty extreme rule to make with literally no reasoning whatsoever.
Careful, you’re getting into “cruelty for the sake of cruelty” territory.
“Mentally ill people shouldn’t be American citizens anyways.”
Or maybe just “Scatterbrained people…”
Okay, I hear what you’re saying… when was the last time you had to present a physical copy of your SS card and NOTHING else could be used as a substitute?
Any time you get hired at a new job they need to make a copy of your SS card.
Requesting your W2s from the IRS requires you to have the card, or 1 of 10 other documents that usually have xxx-xx as the first 5 of the number.
As an aside, the first 5 can be determined if you know what state and year someone was born in.
Rarely but it’s relevant because ICE thugs are abducting people off the street. I get the fear.
I’ve got a locked file cabinet with folders for all my important documents like social security card, birth certificate, the degrees I don’t have hanging on the wall, lease contracts, stuff like that. Also a shitton of appliance manuals
That certainly doesn’t sound like the first thing to get utterly torched in a house fire.
I plan on burning my house down fewer than ten times in my life
I actually keep them (minus appliance stuff because I just find them online and download the pdf and never found them that important) in a fireproof safe. Honestly, it’s not a lot of stuff, and so the safe is really small. It didn’t cost much at all but you do have to replace it like every 10ish years since fireproof doesn’t last forever.
…this. Let’s have a talk about basic security and prevention, because it’s important.
First of all, I wanted to factor in prices, but according to this webpage, the replacement social security cards should be free. However. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, and cannot verify.
By a combination of a small miracle, some neglect, and then some careful choices to safeguard it…I still have my original SS card. I would recommend getting a little passport case or something, and some metal plates or hard plastic cards to keep the SS card from bends/creases. Then you can place it in a blaze barrier document bag like this one. No, you don’t need this exact one, all I did was type in ‘blaze barrier document bag’ into Amazon because that’s the branding on mine. I just looked at it. $20 bag, goes a long way keeping that card safe & unmolested.
Those bags aren’t entirely fireproof & it’s only one layer; they’ve done extreme tests & the contents can (possibly) become slightly torched. That’s where you can buy a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox for next to nothing secondhand, I know I’ve got at least 2 & I think one was $5 & the other $10. Arguably more effective than the bag, my friend’s house burned down but he had a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox & it kept his personal documents & pictures of his deceased mother fully intact.
We’re not looking to confound master thieves with a safe, we’re just looking to safeguard SS cards and/or pics of dead moms. 👍 FB Marketplace, I found ones for $10-15 in IL, KY, MO. Everybody has these shitty 90s fireproof lockboxes. No excuse. Put the document(s) in the bag, and the bag in the shitty 90s fireproof lockbox. Double protection.
Also noteworthy: fireproof concrete lined filing cabinets (I recommend FireKing), sometimes you can find them cheap used because they’re a heavy nuisance item. If you have a basement, put the fireproof/resistant stuff in your basement or ground floor. It’s more stable there & should survive.
Then for those interested in the eccentric & the extreme, dive down the rabbithole known as Starlite fireproof coatings. While we may never know the exact formulation of this wonder material as it was presented, it turns out Maurice Ward merely rediscovered the lost art of intumescent materials that release layers of carbon char when exposed to heat. You can buy intumescent paint like this one & it’ll essentially fireproof any material you paint!
So in conclusion, yes, you can buy fire resistant filing cabinets. Even “fireproof” ones. And safes, and lockboxes, and document bags, and even intumescent paint. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
You can laminate it. New ones don’t say not to, mine is and have never even been asked about it.