Fewer Social Security "No-Match" Letters
Posted Jun 06, 2003

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has changed its policy with respect to "no-match" letters. Far fewer letters will be issued in 2003. The SSA issues no-match letters to employers when an individual's name and social security number do not match the SSA database. This no-match can be for a variety of reasons ranging from innocuous matters, such as legal name changes, to typos, to false and unauthorized social security cards. Last year, the SSA changed its policy on this matter from sending out no-match letters to employers with 10 or more mismatched numbers to sending out letters for all mismatches. We reported this at the time, in our May 31, 2002 article, Social Security No-Match Letters. This change caused problems and fear both for unauthorized immigrant workers and for many employers, in balancing the somewhat conflicting immigration and social security document verification requirements.

The SSA sent the letters in an effort to credit $345 billion dollars that was paid in to SSA, but could not be credited to a correct individual. Apparently, the letter campaign did not have the desired effect and did not result in any significant resolution of the problem. Accordingly, in 2003, the SSA will be changing the policy and will send only 135,000 letters, rather than the 950,000 that were sent in 2002.