Stuff You Should Know - Selects: Social Security Numbers: Less Boring Than You'd Think

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

Do you know that up until July 2011 an ambitious hacker with a good software program could deduce your social security number based on your date and place of birth? In this classic episode, the boys examine some of the lesser-known details of the Social Security system in the U.S.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your career is your most valuable asset. Imagine powering it with the unvarnished advice of the most successful chief executives in the world. I'm Mike Stuype, a three-time CEO, Fortune 500 board leader, and author of the top-selling career guide, The Career Manifesto. On my new show, Office Hours, I sit down with the leaders shaping our world to help you be the CEO of your own career. Listen to Office Hours with Mike Stuype,be on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's a place beyond this place. For some, a bridge between the living and the dead, yet for others, is something else entirely. Welcome to Hip Hop Horror Stories. I'm your host, Belly. In each week, we're going to take you to the limits of your imagination as we explore the reality of their normal experiences. This is Belly, listen to Hip Hop Horror Stories on the High Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi everybody! It's Charles W. Chuck Bryant here. Why don't you jump back into the way back machine with me and we'll go back to April

19, 2012 for this Saturday selects episode. Social security numbers, colon, less boring than you'd think. And I gotta tell you, it is less boring than you'd think. This is a really good episode. So check it out if you didn't think you wanted to know about Social Security numbers. Think again, pal! Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome into the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

Here's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hey, and welcome into the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. AKA 286-547-523. Dude, you can't get about your social security number. I just made that up. I thought about that. I thought about what if I ended up

when we were describing what the different numbers were? I was like, well, mine happens to be this one. If you listen to the whole podcast, you could put together my social security number. And I was like, don't do that, Josh. Don't, we should probably beat out what I said anyway, because that might be someone else's social security number. Yeah, I don't.

I don't wanna be responsible for that. Oh, okay. Well, we'll go back and beat that out. That's really some COA right there. Why, how do you know that that person would be like, yeah, stuff you should know is called me out serial number wise. I want a contest. I can pay for my own hotel in Atlanta to go see the guys. But just me. So Jerry like that. Yeah. So Chuck Josh. Do you know much about social security? A bit. You're about to.

Chuck, yes. The Social Security Act of 1935, created by our old timing forebears, basically created a scheme, and not a scheme in the way of like a carbon trading scheme or something like that. I know you don't like that word, but it's a legitimate word. It doesn't necessarily mean something to far, yes. Right. But under this scheme, social security is given to retiring workers in the form of monthly payment, where basically it says, hey, good job.

You did a good job working. Go take care of yourself. We don't want you to die on the street. Sure. This should hopefully sustain you in your retirement years, right? This is before the advent of 401Ks and the like. Right.

This is $35 a month. Right. Well, the whole basis of it is that the workers of today pay into the social security fund and it is immediately taken and distributed dispersed to workers who have retired today. Yeah. So the workers of today are taking care of the workers of yesterday. That's the whole point to it.

What this has led some people to claim that the Social Security program is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, where you're taking the money of these people to pay off other people. Or socialism even? Oh, it's totally different. It is socialism. Yeah, but people cry socialism a lot these days and they don't think about things like Social Security and all the different ways we do have socialism that people are like, oh, that's fine. Right. Sure. Well, but you can make a case that it is a Ponzi scheme.

Sure. But Stephen Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, would take issue with that. I'm sure he would. He would say, it's not a Ponzi scheme because a Ponzi scheme is not sustainable. So I might argue that Social Security is not sustainable and that is as we say in here in the South, that's a whole nother show. Okay, well I won't talk about it anymore. Well, what do you have some numbers on its sustainability? Well, we can chat about it. Here's the thing. So if you just if you had zero population growth, this thing would work forever.

Right. Right. And it would work completely efficiently with no changes whatsoever. Unfortunately, we don't have zero population growth. And we actually had a spike in population that we know of as the baby boom. Right. Right. Which means that very shortly and starting now, I think, more, there will be way more retired workers than there are workers, which means

that the workers of today are going to have a far greater burden placed on them, taking care of these retired workers than any other workers ever have or will. But, Steven Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, says this will eventually work itself out. The government's taken steps to address this. And what is done is raise the amount of money that people throw into this and they're taking the extra money. And the government is buying

treasury bonds investing in itself. Now, here's the weird thing. When they come mature these bonds, the government pays these things off with other tax money. So the government is going to pay the Social Security fund back with other tax money. Now this will drive people crazy, conservatives, libertarians, right-leaning liberals, right? Fisically conservative liberals especially. But Stephen Gossas shows us it's just a little bump. We're probably not going to have another population spike for a while and Social Security will go right back to normal. It just takes for us right now. Right. The other thing that I'd never really thought about is it could not have been a sustainable program even to begin with because

you start Social Security and when was it 1935? Yeah. People started getting paid out, you know, a year later, two years later. Uh-huh. And so they weren't paying in that long. So immediately you've got a problem on your hands because people are starting to get payouts that didn't pay in for 20 years. You know what I'm saying? Well, yes, that is the case. But the payouts were smaller at first.

Yeah, but it still creates a bit of a wrinkle, I think, that would wrinkle in time for the future. I agree. I would think so. But it was a hump that had to be gotten over and it was gotten over. Like, basically the first people just got screwed. Yeah, well, but they didn't pay in that much either though.

So, no, and that's true. So, they were rightly screwed. Okay. So, let's talk about the history of all this chuck and and by the way i guess the takeaway from the intro social security is considered a what upon system i think people just in their likes

uh... alright well you already you already blew the uh... the big secret there's just uh... the act of 1935. It was coined, the name Social Security was coined by Abraham Epstein, who led the American Association for Social Security. They began paying out in 37, like you said. Yeah, just for workers, right? It was the biggest wage earner of a household, basically, the first just just for workers, right? And it was the the the biggest wage earner of a household basically the dad right

Got the money as the retiree. Yeah, and it was a lump sum Right, they didn't pay it monthly buckets back there. Tell them with the first guy who got Social Security got his lump sum Yeah, his lump sum. Yeah, his lump sum was, was it 17 cents? Yeah. In January, 1937, he was the first guy to get Social Security benefits. And I looked it up, that's $2.55 in 2010 money. Oh, well.

So even back then, he was just like, hey, federal government, I got seven in my pocket for you. Yeah. Josh just made an obscene gesture. We should just say that. In 1939, just two years later, they added survivor's benefits and benefits to spouses and children. Flash forward to 56. They added disability benefits.

65. Medicare was signed into law. Yeah. And in 61, the, I'm sorry, in 61-62, the Civil Service Commission and the IRS adopted the Social Security number as your official federal ID number and taxpayer ID number, respectively. Which is kind of a thing because the first Social Security card specifically said on them not to be used as identification Yeah, but they never made a follow-up law to enforce it and everybody's like that's a perfect for identification Yeah, I'll always remember it because of this card in my wallet. We'll use the mark of the beast as identification The first numbers because this is not just about social security, but more about the numbers,

which is more interesting than I thought. Slightly. Yeah. It was, they were distributed through the post office, because they didn't have field offices yet. It was nascent. Yeah, 45,000 post offices took the initial task to type up these cards, or called typing centers.

Yeah. ask to type up these cards or called typing centers. Yeah, so basically this is what I, this is the part I entitled, bureaucracy, ho, right? Yeah. The Social Security Administration contacted all employers in the United States and said, hey, this is a form SS4. And on it, you just list the number of employees

you have working for. You mail it back to us. And so all the employers filled out, I have 15 employees and then mailed the SS4 back to the Social Security Administration. Social Security Administration opened up the SS4s and they said, okay, this employer has 15 employees. So we're going to mail him 15 SS5 forms, which are basically signing up for your Social Security number.

Yeah. Right. So they mailed the 15 back, probably in one package to the employer, and the employer distributed them among his employees. The employees filled out the SS5 forms, and they sent them back to the Social Security Administration. Social Security Administration said, oh, okay, now we have these and we're going to assign Social Security numbers, right? Right. The, they said, hey, go to your post office, the post office gave them the Social Security numbers, the post office then sent that duplicate form

to the Social Security Administration who created the master file of all of these documents put together, which was your Social Security number file. And that was sent to Maryland? Yes, and then in Maryland is where it all came together. That's right. Yeah. Well, what came together there?

The numbers, the numbering sequence. The whole thing, your whole file. Okay. The block file. That's right. So let's talk about the first numbers since we're there. Who has it and is it 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1? Is it the first number? No. Well, we should first say that no one knows for sure who got the very first card and

the very first number because they they reckon about several hundred thousand people applied in that first November of 1936. So I didn't do the math but there's some I'm sure you could figure out statistically and I'd be interested to hear how to do this but if a hundred thousand people all got their card that day and the post offices were open from like eight to five. Sure. How many people were handed their Social Security number card? Simultaneously that day. How many first people were there? There's got to be some awesome math equation to figure that out.

Yeah. Somebody should do that for us instead of that. So they don't know officially who it was, but their first official record, they do know. uh... it was a guy named john david swiney junior and he uh... had the social security number o five five o nine o o one and by o i mean zero of course or ought and he got his because the uh... headed the social Security administration took it off the top of a stack

and said this is the first one. That's right. So there you go. But they did offer that to, oh no, they offered the 001 number, the lowest number. Right. On record. Right. Before we get to there though, John David Swini ironically died before he could collect his social security payments. John David Swini is the one with the first social security number, so that is very ironic. It is. That's the fact of the podcast if you ask me.

Oh yeah, because retirement age was 65 and he died at 61. Today, they handle it differently. It's a little confusing, but actually it's not that confusing. You just have to be good at math. Benefits are reduced by five nights of 1% for every month you retire before the age of 65. Slack or? Yeah.

Or rich person. Yeah. Good for you. So back to the number one, 0.001 or whatever. Yeah, the all-time low number holder who always will be until we start recycling numbers if we ever need to. We may.

That's her name. Her name is Grace D. Owen. She is of Concord, New Hampshire. Or Concord. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, because we always get mail from people, it's like, oh, you pronounced it Nevada, it's Nevada.

Or if we say Nevada, they say, hey, you pronounced it Nevada, it's Nevada. Or if we say Nevada, they say, hey, you pronounced Nevada. Incorrectly, it's Nevada. No, it is Nevada. But I tell everyone that writes in from Nevada, only people from Nevada say Nevada. Everyone else says Nevada. Right. Especially people in Missouri.

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Listen to Oldish on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Hillary Clinton back with a new season of my podcast, You and Me Both. On this show, I'll be talking to people I admire about many things, including one of my favorite subjects, getting things done. We'll hear from folks in positions of power, like Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, but also writers and actors, community organizers, really anyone who shows up every day and keeps doing the work. There's so much out there to distract us, but all of my guests bring tremendous passion and commitment, an ability to block out the noise,

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, guy got the first number, and it wasn't low, she got it because of where she lived. Originally, the numbers scheming was based on, well, the first two numbers were based on the state you lived in. Right. Starting Northeast, moving westward. Right. And so you had less than 50 possible primary numbers,

the first two, the first three numbers. Yeah, well, not even, they didn't even have 50 at the time, did they? No, that's what I'm saying. So this is a total waste of digits. They figured out very quickly, so they started assigning them to zip codes instead. Right.

And we should talk about these numbers. Do you want to hear, are we there, you know? Well, we are almost there, but you didn't mention that grace oin got that number they were actually offered it as an honor to um... john g went into these uh... social security board chairman and john cambell the uh... federal bureau of old age benefits rep for the boston they offered them both the number

0101 001 and they both said No, no thanks. We are true bureaucrats and that would be against the bureaucracies rules. That's right and 17 cents to Ernest Akerman the first guy to get a payment. Yes, but Item A. Fuller made out like a bandit. This is exactly the problem. This is not the problem. Mrs. Fuller did good things with her money. She bought herself an edgel. Yeah. She invested in web van.

She did great things. She did. So item A. Fuller retired in November of 1939 and she was the first person to start collecting monthly benefits. That's right. So by the time, social security payments, or by the time you had to start paying and because another fact is that you can't opt out.

Yeah. And the time she retired, she contributed a total of $24.75 Because of the Social Security scheme, by the time she died at age $119.75, she collected a total of $22,888.92. See, not sustainable. She made out, she wore like a bandana around her face like the rest of her life. She did? Yeah, she was a Social security bandit. Yeah

Okay Back to the numbers is that enough history? I think so okay So the the first three numbers they're called what the area numbers? Yes, and like you said they were originally from Northeast to West so like if you like if you lived in New Hampshire, your first three numbers were going to be 001. Then they figured out that, well, that's stupid. Like we're going to have 50 states tops. So there's a whole number that we're not using. Eventually, we're going to need it because social security numbers aren't recycled. They're retired after the person dies, right? That is true.

So then they started assigning them to zip code. So that started using up a lot more numbers, right? Yeah, zip code on the mailing address on the application form which didn't necessarily indicate your Residence is just wherever the mailing address was where you applied. Right exactly when you were living Right, and it doesn't yeah, it doesn't mailing in residence is not the same address. Most times it is. But even still, like the place where I was born, it's not where I live now. Oh, yeah. So, right. So, I mean, you have a lot of weird numbers for the beginning. Correct. In the early 70s, since 72 is when they started the zip code. So I believe that I actually

in one of the last years, since I was born in 71, last people to get the one based on the state. Cool. So I'm old timing. Seriously. That is something. Yeah. The next two numbers are group numbers. So you have your area number and then the area number is broken into groups 0, 1 through 99. Yeah, and this makes sense. So the two numbers in the middle are the you are that group of that zip code or that state depending on how old you are. It was just a means to break it up and make it simpler for accounting and filing and all that stuff. Because instead of just one group from an area

or what, 999 possible areas, you now have 99 groups of 999 possible areas. 99 groups each, which allows for a lot more because the eight ball that the Social Security number Is always behind is basically running out of numbers. I don't think that'll happen it well They're well eventually, but there's what what they say a billion combinations There's a billion combinations, but consider this there's been more than 400 million numbers issued since 1935 Yeah, so what a 65 65, 77 years, right?

I have a feeling that it does take into account the baby boom that ate up a lot of numbers. But I mean, I have a feeling that we could reach that and what, another 100 years, the US will be around, I'm sure, longer than then, hopefully. Hey, you never know. Yeah, China is rising Well, it'll be At the very least not in our lifetime Oh, no, so who cares? I would have agreed with you. I do qualified it like that. Yeah, what they'll probably do is um

And I'm guessing here, but they'll probably start reassigning numbers from dead people which will be weird a use social security number Yeah, I imagine they'd go back. I mean, it would make sense to me that they would start from the beginning, again, almost. Yeah. So, like, you're using someone's number from 1935, and the year 2114. It's 2114. Yeah, you got a stinky old mothball number. It's like a wicker wheel chair, something like that.

There's like leather leg braces, something weird like that from the 30s. What are you talking about? You know exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, the last four digits are the serial numbers. And they number consecutively from triple-o-one through 9999. So, that's just saying, well, we're gonna extend the number, the possible numbers we can come up with. Exactly.

Even more. That's right. That's right. That's right. And you know what, you don't even necessarily have to recycle. Even if you add like an extra attempt digit, how much would that change everything? I mean, they'd have to rewrite all their programming and all their accountings and file. But someone wouldn't have to recycle all their programming and all their accounting and file.

But someone would have to recycle numbers. Yeah. Good point. Okay. Luckily, they have people much smarter than us deciding how to handle that. I don't know. We're pretty sharp. All right, Josh.

Common questions. These are actually pretty good. Okay. Chuck, here's a question for you. Does everyone have to have a Social Security number? If you're over 18, then yes, you do. It if you receive an income and you're over 18. If you're interested in starting up a bank account, being a deduction on your parents' income taxes, all sorts of things like that, getting medical coverage,

taking advantage of government services, then you're gonna need that. So there's a lot of people who dispute that. You have to have that. Right. Practically speaking, you do. Like any bank can be like, I'm not doing business with you, and then you say, oh, okay, well, I can't force you to by law, but I'll try your competitor. And you go on down the line and maybe you find a bank, from what I understand, there's banks that are set up in the Midwest for people who don't have Social Security numbers. They could have said, I'm not going to have one. I don't trust the government.

I don't want to have a serial number, and I'm not going to have this. No, but they're still paying in. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think they're still paying in, but they don't have a social security number. So that means they're not going to get benefits at the end. I don't think they think they're going to get benefits anyway. I could get that. But yeah, they don't have a social security number. I think there are people who don't pay social security as well.

It's like a whole, yeah, there's, that's like a whole topic along the fringe of whether or not you need to have one, whether or not you actually do have to pay in, the constitutionality of it, all that stuff. But for all practical purposes, your life is exponentially easier if you have a Social Security number. Right. And you also said you have to pay because you can't tell the government, you know what? I'm setting up for my own retirement and I want to take all the available money that I make to do that because my retirement plan is much better than whatever you, Yokels, are working on. Yeah, because I mean, if you have to pay you in 15.3%, I don't know if that's current,

I haven't looked. But as of the writing of this article, it was 15.3%. 7.65% paid by you out of your gross pay and 7.65 paid by your employer. It is staggering how much we pay in taxes in this country. So if you took 15.3% of your gross pay and put it into a 401k over the same course of years, you would have so much more money yeah Barring a another stock market catastrophe before you could get your money out of your 401k right You would have way more than you have From the Social Security administration as as benefits

You know what I meant to look up is if the government uses this money for other things in the meantime to look up is if the government uses this money for other things in the meantime, or is it strictly like, here, it's in this little pool and all we're doing is paying people out with it. Well, supposedly before the baby boom problem arose, it was going in and right back out. Okay. And I'm sure any surplus was invested in treasury bonds. Now, all of the surplus is invested in Treasury bonds, which is just such a shell game. It's so crazy. And no one has any idea if this is going to work. I swear to God,

I'm not paranoid. I don't live in the Midwest. I'm not a fringe-dweller. This is not something I like keep up with a lot. I don't re-world net daily, there's nothing like that in my life. Yeah. But I'm telling you, this is like, there's no guarantee that this Social Security, I guess, bandage for the baby boom population is like, if it's going to work. It's really, at the very least, it's interesting. Yeah, and the troubling, I would say, at the very least. Sure.

OK. They let you, they make it real easy for you to slap a number on your little brand new baby. Yes, do you have to have a number for your child? Well, like I said, if you want them to get medical coverage and open up a savings account in their name for like their future college or trade school or travels around the world. Or you want to claim it as a deduction on your tax filing? Yeah, then they're going to need one.

And they make it pretty easy on you to get one for your new little, uh, Smelly Baby. They do. Again, I'm not a French dueller, but they have the very sinister sounding enumeration at birth program. That was pretty bad. Yeah. It was started in 1989.

And basically, it just made it very easy for you to get a Social Security number for your infinite as part of their birth record forms. Right. Enumeration at birth. You know, I used to, I think I mentioned this before I used to carry my card around in my wallet when I was a teenager because I thought it was, I don't know, I thought it made me legitimate or adult like it's interesting everyone else is on a five ever announced a self-drinking

and i was like no no i got my social security card it keeps keeps the urges away that's right hey speaking of social security cards and wallets do you want to talk about that lady oh yeah i can't feel the weight or yeah Yeah, this in 1937, dude named Douglas Patterson had a wallet company. I'm sorry.

Age fairy. Yeah, he was the vice president and treasurer of this wallet company. And he said, you know what we should do? We should include a fake social security card in every wallet. But we'll make it look really, really realistic by copying your secretary.

Yeah, he basically assigned these little fake cards that like, you know, you get a picture frame with a fake picture in it. Yeah. They gave out wallet or they sold wallets with a fake so security card with a real number. I don't know why he thought that was a good idea. Or why she went along with it.

Yeah, what was her name? Hilda Schrader-Witcher. She went along with this. Did she go along with it? Did she know was her name? Hilda Schrader-Witcher. She went along with this. Did she go along with her boss? Maybe she didn't know. No, she knew. Oh, she did? Yeah.

And I guess she didn't feel like she could assert herself at the time. But over 40 years, something like 40,000 people used her social security number. Yeah. They gave her a new one. Yeah. And people are still using it.

As recently as 1977, there were are still using it as recently as 1977 there were 12 people using that as their own because of this wallet. Yeah, in defense of the dude He did have the word Spichiman on the bottom of it Space man specimen But it was you know in small print and it looked like the real deal had the little emblem that who was a guy who designed that. Fred Happel. That's right.

And what else did he design? The Flying Tiger's logo. Yeah. Which, what was that? Like a B2 bomber logo? I don't know. It was World War II. I guess some sort of gunner plane or something.

Okay. That'd be my guess. The Fighting Hellcats. Yeah. Flying, Hellfish. That'd be my guess, the fighting hellcats. Yeah. Flying, hellfish. That's a hellfish. The hellfish was the Simpsons? Yeah.

Okay. Josh, can you get a new number? Yes, but only in very extreme cases. Like stalking. Stalking. Like stalking or fraud? A bad case of fraud, I guess. Yeah, I would imagine that the FBI can probably get to one if you're part of the Witness Protection

Program. Oh, sure. Which we've talked about. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to pay for that. There's no fee from the SSA, but what you should be wary of is companies that claim that they can get you a new number to absolve your credit like hey have you

let an awful bad life become a new person will get you a new social security number which is hilarious if you think that that's that's crazy falling for that that's like buying an elevator pass in high school

as a freshman or something like that, it's way worse. When you have a single floor high school. Because I'm sure they're like, not only do we charge you a fee, but give us your Social Security number because we have to go in and like make sure that it's wiped out. Right.

Jeez. Where are we here? You know, the title of this section was, why does it matter if someone knows my social security number? I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah. Identity theft. Yeah.

It's a big problem these days. Back in the old days, it wasn't as much. It's actually gone down since this article. What, 400,000 years, what they said here, right? It's like 217 now. Oh, that's good. Well, that's the ones that the FTC gets reports of, which are probably the lion share of them.

Right. But it was supposedly increasing by some crazy percentage. Yeah, 40% per year. It's up 11%. Okay. So, it's gone down. So, I think people have just gotten scared of it and more wary about it.

But, I mean, it's still obviously a pretty big problem. Sure. Part of the problem, though though is that we shouldn't be using so security numbers for identification for a reason. They're just way too publicly available. Even the last four digits, don't use that as like your pen number. No, but I mean, even if somebody asks you your last four digits, how many people have your last four digits?

How many companies do they? A lot. A lot, and they also have your birth date. They also have where you're born, your mother's maiden name. It's just kind of like, it's all out there. I know. And basically, there's no really good scheme

to, I guess, use as a pass code, as a pass, basically a way of saying, I am me. Right. Because if we all just relied on some other number or something like that, then people could find that out. There's really no good way to do it. But social security numbers are definitely not the answer. Yeah, I always get a little creeped out

when some business, you know, what are the last, like, Comcast or something like my cable company. Yeah. We'll see, what are your last words of your Comcast or something like my cable company. Yeah. We'll say, what are your last words of your social? And I'll spit it out and they'll go, oh, okay. Right, you can say I don't want to tell you,

I want to answer everything else and they'll run you through your paces. But they know it because they're asking you for identification. Right. For verification. Exactly, because you've given it to him already. You don't, there's basically most companies

don't have any legal right to ask you what your social security number is. But they can also say, well, we don't trust you, so if you don't give it to us when you open your account or whatever. Exactly. Then you're out of luck. With government agencies, you can ask for the privacy act of 1974 disclosure notice,

which says like, hey, we have a legal right to ask you this, or we don't. Right. And then you can say, you can't ask me that, Bob. But yeah. All the protection advice that given here is pretty basic, you know, don't carry your card in your wallet. Cancel credit cards. You don't use, don't share it.

I don't need to dispute that one. What? Just cancel credit cards you don't use. There are things you should do. Keep an eye on your account. Your credit card accounts, even though you don't use them. But that's not necessarily good advice, especially credit wise, because there's this thing called the available credit to

debt ratio. One of the ratios that they figure your credits go with, and if you have a clean credit card, you're not using. Yeah, that has like five or ten grand of available credit on it. Sure. That counts, and that makes you very attractive to people who are selling new houses or cars or whatever. That's true. So, don't necessarily go do that.

Keep them in a safe deposit box. Keep an eye on all your accounts, even if you're not using them. Yeah. Boy, my credit rating is so good right now. That's awesome, dude. It's like top 5% tile somehow. Oh, yeah. And that is, I say that as a testament to you out there who may have bad credit, you can

repair it over time. Yeah, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you over time. Yeah, you, you, you, you, you normally did good, huh? Uh, well, yeah, she's the one that helped me get my good credit back. That's good. As CFO. Congratulations, man. That's a big deal. Thank you.

It is good. And my debts, you know, from the past were, I don't want to get into it, but they had less to do with me and more to do with like, bookies, heroin. No, like dog fighting, bad roommates, and getting screwed over by, you know, like, hey, you were supposed to pay this Georgia Power Bill eight years ago, and it's still in my name, and I didn't even know about it, that kind of thing.

And just being lazy in college, like, oh, college kills a lot of people. Yeah, I missed my credit card payment, no big deal, I'll just pay it next month. Right. I'm just gonna go buy some heroin instead. You guys know what you're doing in college, Chuck. Not that. Join former 90210 star Brian Austin Green along, along with dancing with the star's fan favorite Sharna Burgess, and Hollywood air-turned-life coach Randy Spelling, as they navigate life,

love, and the quest for happiness, in the new podcast, Oldish. Have I finally found the secret to happiness and the key to a successful relationship? Let's hope so, because most of that is with me. Brian, a father of five, who's endured a public divorce and a string of unhealthy relationships, and Sharna, a self-proclaimed serial monogamous, have been in a whirlwind romance since meeting in 2020, now they'll tackle the challenges of blended family life while dealing with relentless paparazzi. With the help of their friend Randy, they share their life lessons, pondering the meaning

of it all in the world of the oldish. And even though this Hollywood couple finally found each other, they don't have all the answers. Oh, don't a second! Well, that's where I come in. I'm prepared to guide you, or listeners, through some of life's funniest, awkward, or difficult moments. Listen to Old-ish on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Hillary Clinton back with a new season of My Podcast, you and me both. On this show, I'll be talking to people I admire about many things, including one of

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So I guess that's about it, huh? Yeah. One more piece of advice which is actually good. Every few years, go to the SSA website and request a copy of your earnings and benefit estimate statement. Yeah, have you heard of this before? No, and I've never done it, and I'm going to go do it today. All right, let's go do it together. We'll both go do yours together. We'll be like, what? I've been working since I was 13, so I imagine I'm doing pretty good. Nice. Oh, we didn't talk about that.

The system is weighted. The whole reason it was instituted was to help make sure that people don't fall through the cracks or whatever and to help the poor, more than the wealthy. Although you get more money out, the more money you put in, right? Which is based on your income, so the way you make, the more you pay in. But it's also disproportionately weighted so that the people who are earning the least get a disproportionate amount out to help them.

Correct, Amundo. Which is great. It's socialism, and it finest, as you said. So yeah, that's about it. That's social security numbers. And pretty much social security. I don't think we need to do that again. Okay. Hats off to FDR. Parade New Deal. Parade. Great society. Um, chicken and every pot. That was a Hoover, a number on every forehead. Nice check. Thank you. We'll end it with that one.

If you want to know more about Social Security numbers, you can read this exhaustive article about them by typing in Social Security in the searchbarthouse.com, which means it's time for listener mail. Beeping. Josh, I'm going to call this following up on zero. That one got a lot more attention than I thought. All the math nerds came out.

We were like, zero. Very happy that we did that. And one such nerd emailed us, this is Stephen. And he says, I think I might be able to put your mind to rest on a couple of those zero properties. And a lot of people try to explain this and I think he did the best.

First, dividing by zero, I find it helpful to think of division as separating objects into containers. See, this guy is like talking at my alley. Yeah, a container. Yeah, I can visualize stuff a lot better this way. So if you have five objects in five containers, you would put one object in each container. You still have the same number of objects,

but divided evenly across containers. Now if you have five objects in no containers, in other words, dividing by zero, you still have all the same objects, but they have not been put anywhere. You can't say that you'd put zero for a container, because it's not a lack of items, but rather a lack of containers. So dividing by zero means you have things, but nothing to contain them, so a ratio cannot be formed. It makes sense, right? As for the raising to the zero of power, this is one because our basis of numerology is the number one. All things larger are functions of how many ones it holds and all

things larger define how many need to be combined to form a one. This combined with the fact that exponents don't describe a multiplication, but rather a number of times, a base measurement will be multiplied by a factor means that if the base measurement is never multiplied by the factor, you are left with the base alone. So there you have it. It's tempting to think of these numbers as one to the power, but unfortunately this is wrong. Can you go over that again? No.

I can't. That is from Stephen, a junior software engineer. Thanks Stephen. So I will take him at his word. Yeah, he sounds like he's got it down. Yeah, the containers. That makes total sense to me now. Yeah. So there you have it.

So thanks Stephen, Jr. Software Engineer. We are looking forward to you becoming a senior software engineer, likely in the near future from your email. And if you have some sort of illumination about a previous podcast, doesn't matter how old it is, we always like hearing new stuff about old stuff, true. You can send it in an email to stuffpodcast.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app.

Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Your career is your most valuable asset. Imagine powering it with the unvarnished advice of the most successful chief executives in the world. I'm Mike Stuybe, a three-time CEO, Fortune 500 boy leader, and author of the top-selling career guide, The Career Manifesto. On my new show, Office Hours, I sit down with the leaders shaping our world to help you be the CEO of your own career. Listen to Office Hours with Mike Stuype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Okay Katie, quick, rapid fire. What do you think about when you think about black stories? Tony Morrison. Long novels. Zines. Very complex stories. Movie night with popcorn. Lineage and history. B.T. Awards. Hood motifs. I'm reliable narrators. So it's hard to condense a narrative that's so big into such a small space. But that's why we have the podcast. I'm Katie, and I'm Eves. And on on theme, we tell stories about black stories. Listen to on theme on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. There's a place beyond this place. For some, it's a bridge between the living and the dead. Yet for others, it's something else entirely. Welcome to Hip Hop Horror Stories. I'm your host, Belly. And each week we're going to take you to the limits of your imagination as we explore the reality of their normal experiences.

This is Belly. Listen to Hip Hop Horror Stories on the High Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. your app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.