Which is pretty ridiculous given that everyone needs a social security number, and then if you ever want to rent or buy a place you need a credit score. Then if you want to travel abroad you need a passport. And if you use google, social media or a cell phone, or pretty much just anything online, you are going to get tracked. All of these systems and organizations have already identified you, or they’ll easily do it when needed.

Not having a universal-nation-wide identification system only makes it worse for everyone.

It is pretty annoying -- to sign on to the IRS's system you pretty much need an existing debt to some private company (student loans [but not NELNET!], credit card, mortgage, etc). Apparently we can't have a government run identification service so we have to hack one out of random information from private companies.

SSNs are issued at birth, not at first draw of credit.

SSN is insufficient to get full access to the IRS online account system. Which kinda makes sense given how many data breaches have happened, but it is still annoying.

So are a lot of things that the rest of the world do, but the rest of the world keep on doing them and they work just fine.

Almost like the issue isn't the 'thing' being done, but the people.

Almost like humans will endure and do anything to just be left alone to live their lives. Just because it "works just fine" doesn't mean it's what people want, nor does it mean that it's the ideal for that set of humans. Hey, here's a thought, let people pick if they want their salary public and attached to them.