According to the Social Security Administration
(http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/geocard.html):
The nine-digit Social Security Number is composed of three parts:
* The first set of three digits is called the Area Number
* The second set of two digits is called the Group Number
* The final set of four digits is the Serial Number
There is more info at that site.
There is also this story about the lowest SSN (001-01-0001) at
(http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/firstcard.html):
"Social Security numbers were grouped by the first three digits of the
number (called the area number) and assigned geographically starting in
the northeast and moving across the country to the northwest. But if you
look closely at the distribution pattern you will see an apparent
anomaly. The lowest area numbers are assigned to New Hampshire, rather
than to Maine, even though Maine in the most northeasterly of the
states. This was apparently done so that SSN 001-01-0001 could be given
to New Hampshire's favorite son, Social Security Board Chairman John G.
Winant (Winant was the former three-time Governor of New Hampshire).
Chairman Winant declined to have the SSN registered to him. Then it was
offered to the Federal Bureau of Old Age Benefits' Regional
Representative of the Boston Region, John Campbell, who likewise
declined. It was finally decided not to offer this SSN as a token of
esteem but instead to issue it to the first applicant from New
Hampshire. This proved to be Grace D. Owen of Concord, New Hampshire,
who applied for her number on November 24, 1936 and was issued the first
card typed in Concord, which, because of the area number scheme, also
happened to be the card with the lowest possible number."
---Jerry Zar
==============================
>>> "Donald Burrill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/18/03 11:38PM >>>
On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Karl L. Wuensch wrote in part:
> ... since the first three digits of SSN identify the region of the
> country where the student was a resident when the SSN was assigned.
Has this always been the case, or did it only begin some time after
the
SS system was set up? I originally supposed that some such thing as
you
describe (the first 3 digits being a kind of area code) ought to be
the
case, but this notion was belied by the fact that other SSNs that I
knew
of (my father's, my mother's, my aunt's -- I'll have to ask my
sisters)
had different first-3-digits from my own SSN.
.
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