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RE: "The 1986 amnesty was just that. It was an amnesty, not a guest worker program. Most of the folks who benefitted in New York, btw, were Irish illegals, who had come there in droves because Ireland had a terrible economy at that point. They were literate and skilled and they actually were taking well-paid jobs from Americans."

That's interesting. Because if you look at a graph of the size of SSA's Earnings Suspense File (ESF) there was a spike in the 1980s.

The downside of the spike was after the amnesty. I always assumed that the workers became legal and got valid SSNs and the SSA was able to purge the phony (unmatched to master files) SSNs.

CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSE REPORT, Social Security Administration Benefits Related to Unauthorized Work A-03-03-23053, page 20.

The graph on page 20 is showing the explosive growth of the Earnings Suspense File (ESF) that began in the late 1990s. The spike is almost straight up by 2000. It's still going up, I bet.

But hey! Never mind that the employers' names (tens of thousands of employers) are recorded along with the almost ten million phony SSNs.

Some insist that we need a shiny new law for business and government to ignore.

I always assumed that the workers became legal and got valid SSNs and the SSA was able to purge the phony (unmatched to master files) SSNs.

That's very interesting. I have never been clear on how the government is able to accept money on what are clearly phony SS accounts. Although I suppose the government will take money that comes to it from any source, no questions asked.