Volume 8, Number 1, Winter-Spring 1999

Social Security Credit for
Past Misreported Earnings

If a formerly undocumented worker is now authorized to work in the United States, can he or she get credit for past employment that was reported based on false employment documents? The answer to that question, posted recently on the AG-HRnet discussion group, is yes. As suggested on the net by Steve Sutter and Phil Hull, of the Washington Growers League, the Social Security Administration keeps records of all such earnings indefinitely and makes every effort to ensure that they are properly credited to the right worker's lifetime Social Security earnings record.

By getting the records corrected, the worker may be able to: (1) gain a higher potential retirement benefit, and (2) qualify sooner for Social Security disability benefit coverage. A good first step is to call the Social Security Administration (800/772-1213). Employers can help by, among other things, filing form W-2c, "Corrected Wage and Tax Statement" with the Social Security Administration to correct the Social Security number and/or name previously reported under an erroneous one. Details are given in the employer's Circular A Tax Guide. The guide and form W-2c are available from the Internal Revenue Service toll-free number (822/829-3676). Taxpayers can request a record of their lifetime earnings through the Social Security Administration website (http://www.ssa.gov).

Below is a comment from Bill Brees, Employer Services Liaison Officer, Social Security Administration, San Francisco Regional Office, explaining how the system works to match earnings, names, and Social Security numbers:

Any wages reported by employers on W-2s (the federal report filed with the Social Security Administration every year) are posted to a worker's lifetime Social Security earnings record. That's providing, of course, that both the name and Social Security number on the W-2 were correct and match the person's Social Security record. If there is a mismatch, the earnings are safeguarded in our system, not discarded. The accounting practices on this are rigid. We are a record-keeping agency, and we are proud of the way we do that.

Social Security does a number of things to find the right person's record so that his or her earnings can be posted to it, including writing to the employee at the address on the W-2. But there are always some we ultimately can't post that remain in what we call the "suspense" file (not posted to a worker's record).

If the worker was not legally authorized to work at the time, but now is, then yes, the worker can get credit for those earnings. Here's how it works: In every case I can think of, the worker now has a valid Social Security card with a different number than was first used. The Social Security office is probably aware of the status change and has done its best, with the worker's help, to move the old earnings in suspense to the new record. The wages and taxes were both paid long ago, so the credit can be given now that the legal status problem has been eliminated and now that SSA has set up a valid earnings record for the person. There is no bar to this in law.

Nor is there any time limit to make the correction. In fact, the law specifically provides for adding wages if there is evidence the earnings belong to the person. In these cases, SSA already has the evidence -the W-2 report from the employer that we safeguarded in the suspense file - so the earnings are posted to the new, correct record.

SSA would ask employers who are aware of status changes like this to assist the worker in getting proper credit. As I said, most likely it has been done already by SSA when the valid Social Security card was issued. But if the employee can't recall employers he or she worked for or names and Social Security numbers used in the past, we may not have been able to do that. If employers are able to help the person recall some of this, the worker can go back to SSA with new information that will help us find the previously reported wages.

Thanks for giving me a chance to explain. The previous suggestion to have the worker call SSA directly was perfect. We'll take it from there.