America Keeps Rejecting an ID Card It Already Has

For anyone who wants an explanation at just how bad the social security number really is, this is the most enjoyable explanation for it I've seen, by CGP Grey [VIDEO]

For everybody who isn't acquainted with how Social Security Cards work in the US and how they came to be I highly recommend watching "Social Security Cards Explained" by CGP Grey [VIDEO] He also explains why US citizens don't have an Identity Card as opposed to many European countries.

Don't blame the immigrants, blame those who are fully or partly paying under the table. Of course, would you support a national ID card as a means of combating this variable you accuse? In the US we pretty much have such a thing already, just without any proper security or identification aspects... [VIDEO] (A short (< 8 min) video by the ever informative CGP Grey on the inanity of US SS cards.)

The SSN was never intended as a national ID. It was originally created alongside the Social Security Administration, to track what individuals put in and what they take out. People only received one upon becoming employed. Over time, the IRS realized that it could be used as a national ID, and adopted it for that purpose. They encouraged people to obtain one from a young age (even for their newborn children), and it was used to replace the original 'honor system' of 'How many children do you have?' tax discounts; now they'd need to register their child with a SSN. Companies eventually began piggybacking on the number as a national identifier (due to our lack of one), and voila. We're left with an awfully insecure identification system that shouldn't be an identification system for much in the first place. For anyone interested in more: [VIDEO] , and the sources below the video.

You're right it was never meant to be a unique identifier, we need a national identification card, link to a video about it. [VIDEO]

CGP Gray did a really good video[1] about this recently. The short version is that it's the least terrible mechanism presently available for uniquely identifying and disambiguating American citizens. [1] [VIDEO]

Here's a relevant pop science video by CGP Grey[0] that explains all the various problems with SSNs. My favorite part is the fact that until quite recently (2011) you could decrement or increment a given SSN by 1 and get another valid SSN, since they were sequential. [0]: [VIDEO]

Actually, the SSN is an account number, solely intended for tracking money paid into and paid out of an account. It isn't meant for identification, and the method it's used for identification is terrible. (Largely: If you know the number, you are identified.) It's treated like a secret, but as a 9-digit number you give to dozens of organizations in your life which follows a predictable and partially guessable pattern, it is an absolutely terrible secret. Absolutely good explainer video about how this travesty took place historically: [VIDEO]