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Q20: Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?
A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.
There are only enough digits in the current set of SS#’s to accommodate 1 billion different numbers, including 000-00-0000.
The current population is in excess of 313 million. Since SS#’s are now given at birth, essentially, all the current living citizens plus all the previous ones that have died since the late 1930’s, plus all the immigrants from other nations, legal or illegal, must be approaching the mark....