at the table or nancy berryhill for acting commissioner of the social security administration, elizabeth curda, director of education workforce and income security for government accountability office, samuel lester can privacy counsel electronic privacy information center, paul rosenzweig -- >> it's rosenzweig. >> thank you. senior fellow at the art history institute, the senior vice president and chief technology officer mcafee, jeremy grant, coordinator, james louis senior vice president technology policy program center for strategic and international studies. acting commissioner berryhill, please begin your testimony. >> chairman johnson, ranking member larson and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to identify identity theft and the future of the social security number. i'm the social security acting commissioner. the scope of our program is enormous. we pay monthly benefits to over 62 million social security beneficiaries and 8 million supplemental security recipien recipients. during 2017 repeat of 934 billion social security beneficiaries and 55 billion to the ssi re

elizabeth curda, paul rosenzweig. senior fellow institute. steve grobman senior vice president and chief technology officer at mcafee. james lewis senior vice president and director center for strategic and international studies. acting commissioner berryhill, please begin your testimony. >> chairman johnson, ranking member larson, and members of the subcommittee. thank you for inviting to discuss identity theft and the future of the social security number. i'm nancy berryhill social security's acting commissioner. the scope of our programs is enormous. we pay monthly benefits to over 62 million social security beneficiaries and 8 million supplemental security recipients. during 2017, we paid about $934 billion in addition, we posted $249 million earning items to workers records last year. the ssn underpins the programs we administer. we designated this nine-digit number in 1936 to allow employers to employers employers to accurately report earnings. today we issue around 505 million unique numbers to individuals. we recreated the social secu

welcome elizabeth curda, please proceed. >> chairman johnson, ranking member and members of the subcommittee. thank you for inviting me here to discuss the observations on the extent to which the paper social security card is currently used and what it costs to produce. we have issued about 500 million social security numbers and cards since the social security program began in 1935. originally, the ssn is not intended to serve as a personal identifier outside of the ssa programs predict universality and uniqueness government agencies and private sector entities increasingly used the ssn as a convenient means of identifying people. however, as everyday transactions are increasingly conducted electronically, it raises questions about whether a paper card is still needed or desirable to communicate or verify a persons ssn. today i will first discuss with their federal requirements to present the social security card, second i will discuss common situations in which other public or private sector stakeholders may ask to see the card to conduct business. finally, i will discuss stakeholder views