It’s supposed to be this super duper important and secret number, but you have to bring a physical copy to work miles away from home for some stranger to copy. Many times you have to provide the number to even apply for a job and it ends up at who knows where because the application is on a third party private website. :agony-deep:
I know the reason for that for reasons. They aren’t meant to be carried with you. SSA assumes everyone has a safe place to store it (lol). If you lose it, it is degradable paper so that someone is less likely to find this. Like most things in SSA and the USA, this was developed in 1935 and never changed.
"Good thing we perfected society 80 years ago" might as well be the national motto at this point