Can a Connecticut childcare provider get a state license without a Social Security number, by using an ITIN instead?

Plain-English summary

OEC Commissioner Beth Bye asked AG William Tong a question with significant practical consequences for immigrant childcare workers: can someone who has no Social Security number, but has an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), get a Connecticut childcare license? Two statutes seemed to potentially require an SSN: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4a-79 (a general statute about state licensing) and Conn. Gen. Stat. § 17b-137a (a more specific statute aimed at professional, occupational, marriage, and commercial driver's licenses).

Tong concluded that OEC must request an SSN and EIN from every applicant and must record the numbers when applicants have them, but cannot deny a license to an applicant who simply does not have an SSN. The plain text of § 17b-137a only requires the SSN to be "recorded" on the application; it does not condition issuance of the license on an SSN. Reading the statute to require an SSN as a precondition would also produce an absurd result, because the same statute requires a decedent's SSN to be recorded on a death certificate, and no one thinks Connecticut would refuse to issue a death certificate to someone who never had an SSN.

The federal context is illuminating. Section 17b-137a was enacted in 1997 (P.A. 97-7) to comply with PRWORA (the 1996 federal welfare reform law), which conditioned some federal funds on states adopting laws to collect SSNs to help track parents who owed child support. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has interpreted that federal mandate the same way Tong does: states must collect SSNs from applicants who have them, but the law does not require an applicant to have an SSN to receive a license. Several other states (Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Florida) have reached the same conclusion through their own AG opinions on parallel statutes.

The opinion also flags two practical points: OEC's identity-verification and criminal-records checks (which use fingerprinting, not SSNs) are not affected, and OEC may want to require an affidavit from applicants without an SSN explaining the reason, as recommended by HHS in 1999.

What this means for you

If you are a childcare provider applying for a Connecticut license

Having an SSN is not required for licensing. If you have one, OEC will request it and record it. If you do not, you should still apply, and you should be prepared to provide an alternative identifier (an ITIN, for example) along with documentation explaining why you do not have an SSN. OEC may ask for an affidavit attesting that you do not have an SSN. Your fingerprint-based background check is separate from the SSN question and proceeds normally.

If you work in OEC licensing

This opinion settled the AG's position: collect SSNs and EINs from those who have them, ask for the reason if an applicant says they don't have one, and process the application on the merits. Do not use the lack of an SSN as a basis for denial. Document the alternative identifier (such as an ITIN) and the explanation in the file. The federal Privacy Act of 1974 (which generally bars conditioning rights or benefits on SSN disclosure) makes a federal-mandate exception that fits the collection requirement here, but does not authorize denying licensure for absence of an SSN.

If you advise immigrant workers entering childcare

Treat the SSN question as an information-collection issue, not a gating issue. Help your client document their ITIN or other identifier, and prepare a brief affidavit explaining the absence of an SSN if asked. The opinion is short, accessible, and provides a useful reference point if a licensing official questions whether an SSN is required.

If you handle child-support enforcement

The data-sharing rule in § 17b-137a(d) limits disclosure of any SSN collected under the statute to the channels in § 17b-137 (the child-support enforcement statute). The collected SSNs are a child-support enforcement tool, and the records are protected from broader disclosure.

Common questions

Q: What is an ITIN, and how is it different from an SSN?
A: An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number is a tax-processing number issued by the IRS to people who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification but are not eligible for an SSN. ITINs are commonly used by certain immigrant workers, dependents, and others. They serve identification purposes for tax compliance but are not interchangeable with SSNs in every context.

Q: Why was the SSN requirement put on the books in the first place?
A: To help collect child support. The federal PRWORA law of 1996 conditioned welfare-related funding on states' adoption of uniform child-support enforcement practices, including a requirement that states collect SSNs in connection with various licenses, marriages, and divorces, so that the SSN database could be cross-referenced against parents who owed support. The Connecticut law was a direct response.

Q: What if an applicant simply does not have an SSN?
A: Section 4a-79 already addresses this: the agency must require the applicant to provide "the reason or reasons for the unavailability." OEC can ask for that reason in writing and document it.

Q: Can OEC ask for an ITIN as an alternative?
A: The statutes do not address this directly, but the AG's analysis treats SSN collection as an information-collection requirement rather than a substantive licensing condition. Asking for an ITIN as an alternative identifier is consistent with the statute's purpose and with how other states have handled it.

Q: Does this affect background-check requirements?
A: No. The opinion explicitly notes that OEC's identity verification and criminal-records checks use a fingerprinting process, not the SSN, and are unaffected.

Q: What do other states do?
A: The same. Louisiana (architects), Tennessee (marriage licenses), Texas (commercial pesticide applicators), and Florida (professional licensing generally) have all interpreted their parallel state statutes as requiring SSN collection without conditioning licensure on having an SSN.

Q: Does the federal Privacy Act of 1974 affect this?
A: The Privacy Act normally prevents conditioning rights or benefits on SSN disclosure, but it has an exception for disclosures required by federal law. PRWORA's mandate to collect SSNs falls within that exception, which is why the requirement to request SSNs is lawful. The Privacy Act does not authorize the further step of denying licensure to people without an SSN.

Background and statutory framework

Section 4a-79 is the general state licensing statute on identifier collection. It tells every state agency, "as part of any procedure for issuing any license," to collect each applicant's SSN, EIN, or both, "if available." When the numbers are unavailable, the agency must ask the applicant to explain why. Nothing in the text conditions licensure on availability of the numbers.

Section 17b-137a is the more specific provision, written in 1997 to conform Connecticut law to PRWORA's § 317 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(13)). It says the SSN of an applicant for a license, certification, or permit "to engage in a profession or occupation regulated pursuant to the provisions of title 19a, 20 or 21" "shall be recorded" on the application. OEC's childcare licensing authority comes from title 19a, so the statute applies here. The statute also covers commercial driver's license applicants (referencing § 14-44c), marriage license applicants (referencing § 46b-25), and parties to dissolution-of-marriage decrees, support orders, and paternity matters.

The interpretive question turns on what "shall be recorded" means. The federal HHS Office of Child Support Enforcement has read the parallel federal language as requiring states to collect SSNs from applicants who have them but not requiring applicants to have one. AG Tong gave that reading deference for two reasons: it tracks plain meaning, and it reflects how the agency that runs the underlying program enforces the law. He also drew on the federalism canon from U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Ass'n, 140 S. Ct. 1837 (2020): childcare licensing is a traditional state function, and the absence of "exceedingly clear language" in PRWORA cuts against reading the federal mandate as silently displacing state licensing discretion.

The legislative-intent thread is consistent. Representative Abrams, sponsor of P.A. 97-7, told the House the bill was a response to "the recently enacted federal welfare reform acts." The Connecticut statute was meant to do what PRWORA required, no more, and PRWORA did not require licensure to depend on having an SSN.

Citations and references

Connecticut statutes:
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4a-79 (general state-license SSN collection)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 17b-137a (license SSN requirement post-PRWORA)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 17b-137 (child support data sharing)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-2z (plain meaning rule)
- Public Act 97-7 (1997 special session)

Federal statutes:
- Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)
- 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(13)
- Privacy Act of 1974

Cases:
- Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms Int'l, LLC, 331 Conn. 53 (2019) (avoiding absurd results)
- Woodrow Wilson of Middletown, LLC v. Conn. Hous. Fin. Auth., 294 Conn. 639 (2010) (analogous-federal-statute interpretive canon)
- Michigan Dep't of State v. United States, 166 F. Supp. 2d 1228 (W.D. Mich. 2001) (PRWORA purpose)
- U.S. Forest Serv. v. Cowpasture River Pres. Ass'n, 140 S. Ct. 1837 (2020) (federalism canon)

Persuasive authority:
- HHS Office of Child Support Enforcement, PIQ-99-05 (July 14, 1999)
- 2018 La. Op. Att'y Gen. No. 18-0083
- 2008 Tenn. Op. Att'y. Gen. No. 08-126
- 2005 Tex. Op. Att'y. Gen. No. GA-0289
- 1999 Fla. Op. Att'y. Gen. No. 99-71

Source

• Landing page: https://portal.ct.gov/AG/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/ag/opinions/2022/2022_2_oec_ag_opinion.pdf?rev=245a638ae51e4f28929c1018f199cda7

Original opinion text

December 21, 2022
By U.S. Mail and Email
Beth Bye
Commissioner, Office of Early Childhood
450 Columbus Boulevard, Suite 303
Hartford, Connecticut 06103
Re:

Formal Opinion Request on Provision of Social Security Numbers in Childcare Licensing
Applications

Dear Commissioner Bye:
Connecticut law empowers the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) to regulate and license childcare
providers. As part of the licensing process, OEC requires applicants to provide identifying
information. By letter dated August 24, 2022, you asked “whether an Individual Taxpayer
Identification Number (ITIN) may be utilized in lieu of a Social Security number (SSN) on
childcare license applications under the statutory scheme applicable to the OEC.”
In this formal opinion, we conclude that OEC must request each applicant’s SSN. It must also
record the SSN of any applicant who has one. But it need not reject a license application just
because the applicant lacks an SSN.
Legal Background
Your question calls for an interpretation of two statutes, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4a-79 and 17b-137a,
that concern the information the state seeks in granting licenses.
Section 4a-79 is the more general statute, aimed at ensuring efficient and accurate tax collection.
It commands public agencies, “as part of any procedure for issuing any license,” to collect each
applicant’s SSN, federal employer identification number (EIN), or both – if available. If the
numbers are unavailable, the agency must require the applicant to provide “the reason or reasons
for the unavailability.” On its face, then, § 4a-79 does not require rejecting applicants who lack an
SSN.
165 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06106
An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

Commissioner Beth Bye
December 21, 2022
Page | 2

Next we turn to § 17b-137a, which supplements § 4a-79 and governs any “application for a license,
certification or permit to engage in a profession or occupation regulated pursuant to the provisions
of title 19a, 20 or 21.” OEC licenses childcare providers under title 19a.
The Connecticut General Assembly passed § 17b-137a in response to a federal mandate aimed at
facilitating child support collection. Signed into law on August 22, 1996, the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) conditioned the
availability of some federal welfare funds on state compliance with uniform child support laws
and procedures. Congress believed that states could use SSNs to identify, track down, and collect
child support funds from parents seeking to evade their obligations. See Michigan Dep’t of State
v. United States, 166 F. Supp. 2d 1228, 1231 (W.D. Mich. 2001) (explaining purpose of
PRWORA’s provisions on collecting SSNs). So PRWORA’s § 317 directed states – on pain of
losing some federal funding – to enact laws requiring that the SSNs of:
(A)
any applicant for a professional license, commercial driver’s license,
occupational license, recreational license, or marriage license be recorded on the
application;
(B)
any individual who is subject to a divorce decree, support order, or paternity
determination or acknowledgment be placed in the records relating to the matter;
and
(C)
any individual who has died be placed in the records relating to the death
and be recorded on the death certificate.
42 U.S.C § 666(13).1
Connecticut quickly took action. In a summer 1997 special session, the General Assembly passed
Public Act 97-7 – now encoded at § 17b-137a – to conform our law with the federal mandate. See
40 Conn. H.R. Proc., pt. 19, 1997 Spec. Sess. (June 18, 1997) (remarks of Rep. Abrams) (“This
and the bill that follows are responses to the recently enacted federal welfare reform acts.”). The
new law provided:
(a)
The Social Security number of the applicant shall be recorded on each (1)
application for a license, certification or permit to engage in a profession or
1

Under the federal Privacy Act of 1974, government cannot condition rights, benefits, or privileges on an individual’s
disclosure of their SSN. But the Act carved out an exception – applicable here – where the disclosure is required by
federal law.

Commissioner Beth Bye
December 21, 2022
Page | 3

occupation regulated pursuant to the provisions of title 19a, 20 or 21; (2) application
for a commercial driver’s license or commercial driver’s instruction permit
completed pursuant to subsection (a) of section 14-44c; and (3) application for a
marriage license made under section 46b-25.
(b)
The Social Security number of any individual who is subject to a dissolution
of marriage decree, support order or paternity determination or acknowledgment
shall be placed in the records relating to the matter.
(c)
The Social Security number of the deceased person shall be recorded on
each death certificate completed in accordance with subsection (b) of section 762b.
(d)
Any Social Security number of any individual on any record or document
required pursuant to this section shall not be disclosed except as provided under
section 17b-137.
Other states joined Connecticut in passing laws complying with the federal mandate. See, e.g., La.
R.S. § 37:23 (law responsive to PWRORA, requiring professional licensing boards to seek SSNs
from applicants; Tex. Fam. Code § 231.302 (“[T]o assist in the administration of laws relating to
child support enforcement… each licensing authority shall request and each applicant for a license
shall provide the applicant’s social security number.”).
So the question here is: Does § 17b-137a – like § 4a-79 – merely require OEC to record the SSN
of any applicant who has one? Or does it go farther, demanding that OEC reject a childcare license
applicant who lacks an SSN? To answer that question, we look to the plain meaning of the statute;
to its context within the statutory scheme; and to indicia of legislative intent. We are guided by the
interpretations of similar statutes by the federal government and other states.
And there is a clear answer. Section 17b-137a commands OEC to request and record the SSN of
any applicant who has one. But it does not condition licensure on having an SSN.
The Plain Meaning and Context of § 17b-137a Do Not Require Applicants to Provide a
Nonexistent SSN as a Condition of Licensing
We begin with the plain meaning of the text. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-2z (“The meaning of a statute
shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to
other statutes.”).

Commissioner Beth Bye
December 21, 2022
Page | 4

Section 17b-137a(a) does not command an applicant to provide an SSN. Its requirement is not
directed to the applicant at all. Nor does it command agencies to deny licenses to applicants who
lack an SSN. On its face, then, the statute cannot be read to control the issuance or nonissuance of
licenses. It controls only what must be recorded on applications.
Context is helpful here. Reading § 17b-137a(a) to mandate an SSN as a precondition of licensure
would require reading part of the same statute, § 17b-137a(c), to forbid issuing a death certificate
if a decedent lacks an SSN. The legislature could not have intended that absurd result. See Soto v.
Bushmaster Firearms Int’l, LLC, 331 Conn. 53, 134 (2019) (recognizing the canon of construction
that dictates construing statutes to avoid absurd outcomes). Instead, the entire statute should be
read as it is written – as a command to record available information.
Persuasive Authority and Indicia of Legislative Intent Confirm Our Reading
The federal government interprets § 17b-137a’s progenitor statute as allowing states to license
applicants who lack SSNs. That interpretation of a mirroring federal law is persuasive authority,
especially here, where the General Assembly specifically responded to Congress and showed no
intent to go beyond the Congressional mandate. See Woodrow Wilson of Middletown, LLC v. Conn.
Hous. Fin. Auth. 294 Conn. 639, 647(2010) (“When a state statute is ambiguous and in need of
construction, this court has frequently looked to analogous federal statutes for guidance in the
interpretation of our state act.”).
In a 1999 memorandum, the Commissioner of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’
Office of Child Support Enforcement gave an authoritative gloss on 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(13) – the
statute whose passage as part of PWRORA led the Connecticut General Assembly to adopt § 17b137a:
We interpret the statutory language in section 466 (a)(13) of the Act to require that
States have procedures which require an individual to furnish any social security
number that he or she may have. Section 466 (a)(13) of the Act does not require
that an individual have a social security number as a condition of receiving a
license, etc.

Commissioner Beth Bye
December 21, 2022
Page | 5

PIQ-99-05 (July 14, 1999), https://tinyurl.com/mvkmz2kn.2 So the agency with authority to
enforce 42 U.S.C. § 666 does not read the law as regulating licensure – only as facilitating child
support enforcement by collecting SSNs from applicants who have them. 3
Our sister states have repeatedly relied on this federal authority in interpreting their own mirroring
statues as allowing licensure of applicants who lack SSNs. Thus, for instance, Louisiana’s
Attorney General ruled that Louisiana’s law adopting 42 U.S.C. § 666 does not prohibit the state
from granting architect licenses to applicants who lack an SSN. 2018 La. Op. Att’y Gen. No. 180083.4 And see, e.g., 2008 Tenn. Op. Att’y. Gen. No. 08-126 (applicant who lacks an SSN need
not obtain and provide an SSN to receive a marriage license); 2005 Tex. Op. Att’y. Gen. No. GA0289 (neither state nor federal law requires obtaining an SSN as a condition for commercial
pesticide applicator licensing); 1999 Fla. Op. Att’y. Gen. No. 99-71 (intent of Florida’s law, passed
in response to federal mandate, was not to limit who could obtain a professional license).
As Louisiana’s Attorney General concluded, these states’ reading also finds support in
Congressional intent, which drove state legislative intent here. 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(13), like its state
descendants, was passed “exclusively for the purposes of child support enforcement.” 2018 La.
Op. Att’y Gen. No. 18-0083. Neither the federal law nor the state cognates, including
Connecticut’s law, were intended to dictate how state licensing authorities should exercise their
discretion around granting or denying licenses. This child support enforcement purpose is why §
17b-137a(d) only allows disclosure of SSNs collected under the statute “as provided under section
17b-137” – a statute that controls how a state’s child support enforcement agencies can obtain
information for collections.
Conclusion

2

The memorandum also advises (but does not command) states to require applicants who lack an SSN to instead
submit an affidavit attesting that they do not have an SSN.
3

This reading is consistent with the federalism canon of statutory interpretation. Licensing childcare facilities is the
historical responsibility and prerogative of the states – a core exercise of their traditional police power to protect public
health and safety. Courts presume that Congress does not legislate to interfere with that state power absent
“exceedingly clear language” U.S. Forest Serv. v. Cowpasture River Pres. Ass’n, 140 S. Ct. 1837, 1849–1850 (2020).
4

“Based on the relevant federal office’s interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(13), we are persuaded that federal law
does not require the states to insist on collecting social security numbers from professional license applicants as a
prerequisite to licensure in situations where the applicant has not been issued a social security number. Given that the
Louisiana Legislature enacted La. R.S. 37:23 to conform to federal law, Louisiana law ought to be interpreted to
require no more than what federal law demands.”

Commissioner Beth Bye
December 21, 2022
Page | 6

We conclude that OEC must comply with §§ 17b-137a and 4a-79 by seeking the social security
number and the EIN of each applicant for a childcare license. It must also record the SSN and/or
EIN of any applicant who has one. And it must seek reasons from applicants who lack those
identifiers. But it need not precondition licensure on an applicant’s providing an SSN – or EIN, or
ITIN – that they do not have.5
I trust this opinion responds to your request.
Very truly yours,

WILLIAM TONG

5

This opinion does not affect OEC’s obligation to verify the identity of applicants and to obtain and scrutinize
applicants’ criminal records. But we understand that OEC uses an appropriate fingerprinting process to check criminal
records. An applicant’s having an SSN has nothing to do with that process.