Moe : Yesterday, I went to the NYSDMV to renew my driver’s license.  I decided to spend the extra $ 30.00 to get the enhanced version.  I carefully got together all the requested documents except for my Social Security ID card. I lost the last one in a hold-up in the 1970′s and had never bothered to get a new one.

I have managed to renew my driver’s license several times since the 1970′s without needing to show a Social Security ID card.  In fact, at my last renewal, the NYSDMV accepted my Form SSA – 1099 – Social Security Benefit Statement and my Form 1099-R  from the NYS & Local Employees Retirement System to verify my Social Security information.

However, this time the NYSDMV would not accept those documents and demanded a Social Security ID card. They claimed that it was a “Homeland Security” requirement and could not be waived.  I remembered that I still had the first Social Security card I was issued when I got my “working papers” at age 14 in 1952.  I asked if that old card would be sufficient. Thy said yes so I made the round trip to pick up the original card.

When I returned with the card, i thought that my troubles were over.  Then the NYSDMV person noticed that, on the ID card my middle initial was “P” while on all of my other documents, including the Social Security Benefit Statement, my middle initial is a “M.”  I tried to point out that the “P” obviously was a “printing error”  without success. 

I had to go to Social Security where, aftr a long wait, a helpfull clerk made the arrangements for a new Social Security ID to be issued.  It will take a week to ten days before I receive the new card in the mail and can begin the whole procedure once again.  Wish me luck.