[GeronL]

i somehow doubt it works that way

[colorado tanker]

Your post made me curious because I assumed that the earnings reported under an SSN would of course be posted to that account. Once again, I learned about when we assume.

There is a huge scam the Social Security Administration is perpetrating. They refuse to help identify identity thieves using stolen SSN's. But, they pocket all the money anyway. If social security deductions by an employer fail to match SSA's records on the owner of the number, the report drops into a mismatch account and the money goes to something called the Earnings Suspense File. So, it isn't credited to the owner of the account but isn't refunded to the employer who deposited it, either. The ESF racks up about 6 billion a year and the total account is now over half a trillion dollars. A little secret stash for the SSA.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/02/ss_secret_stash.html