Will we ever run out of social security numbers?

People do die. :)

Well there are 10^9 or 1000000000 different ones. Thats only 1 billion. There are in fact less because of the restrictive numbering scheme (first three numbers indicate the “area” you applied for the number) I think a new, more secure system will be designed before we hit that number, or as mowens said we will just recycle old ones.

I don’t think so because
A: People die and perhaps those numbers get “recycled” and
B: Even if we got all the way to 999–99-9999 then we would just add a tenth digit.

Not until the population surpasses 1 billion, because as has been suggested they recycle them after you die.

Although they could probably just add a digit when we hit a billion, and be just fine.

uuuuugh its scary how my number could have been someone elses. i shall create superstitions about luck concerning who owned your number before you.

I dob’t think the numbers have been around long enough for that to be applicable yet.

@mowens now your making me wonder when they actually started.

We could always just go into letters, right?

Well when people die, they will be recycled right? If someones been dead 100 years… why keep the number?