The Social Security Administration has the following notice:
One should not make too much of the "geographical code." It is not meant to be any kind of useable geographical information. The numbering scheme was designed in 1936 (before computers) to make it easier for SSA to store the applications in our files in Baltimore since the files were organized by regions as well as alphabetically. It was really just a bookkeeping device for our own internal use and was never intended to be anything more than that.
This was not added recently. A snapshot from 2001 using archive.org has the same notice.
That leaves only the marx question, then.
A little more on SS# area codes:
Area numbers - The first three numbers originally represented the state in which a person first applied for a Social Security card. Numbers started in the northeast and moved westward. This meant that people on the east coast had the lowest numbers and those on the west coast had the highest. Since 1972, the SSA has assigned numbers and issued cards based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the original application form. Since the applicant’s mailing address doesn’t have to be the same as his residence, his area number doesn’t necessarily represent the state in which he resides. For many of us who received our SSNs as infants, the area number indicates the state we were born in. You can find out which area numbers go with each state at SSA.gov: Social Security Number Allocations.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/social-security-number.htm/printable
What’s your theory on why Obama applied in Connecticut?