Originally Posted by fl_prn_str

What The Numbers Mean

The nine-digit Social Security number is divided into three parts. The
first three numbers generally indicate the state of residence at the time a
person applies for his or her first card. Originally, the lowest numbers
were assigned to the New England states, and the numbers grew progressively
higher in the South and West. However, in recent years, this geographical
relationship has been disrupted somewhat by the need to allocate numbers
out of sequence to certain growing and populous states. The middle two
digits of a Social Security number have no special significance, but merely
serve to break the numbers into blocks of convenient size. The last four
characters represent a straight numerical progression of assigned numbers.

SSA has issued about 365 million Social Security numbers, and about 10
million new numbers are assigned each year. But even at this rate, there
will be no need to reissue the same numbers, revise the present system, or
devise a new numbering system for several generations. For this reason, SSA
plans to continue using the nine-digit number.