If you served in the U.S. Navy and later developed mesothelioma or an asbestos-related illness, your Social Security earnings record is one part of rebuilding a documented service and work history. This is true whether your exposure occurred during active duty, at a naval shipyard as a civilian worker, or in post-service trades employment at a ship repair facility.
This page covers what’s in the record, the fastest way to see it, the paper-form fallback, and where Social Security fits alongside the other records that matter most for Navy asbestos claims.
The fastest way to see your record
The fastest way to see your earnings record is to log into your my Social Security account at ssa.gov/myaccount. It’s free, same-day, and shows your earnings by employer year by year.
Doing this yourself is faster than having someone else do it for you. When a worker logs into their own account, the data appears immediately. When an investigator or attorney requests the same record on a worker’s behalf, it becomes a third-party request — which adds consent and authority verification on the front end. That’s routine work, but the worker’s own login skips it entirely. So if you’re gathering documents ahead of time, your own my Social Security login is the single fastest thing you can do.
Steps:
- Go to ssa.gov/myaccount.
- Create a my Social Security account. You will verify your identity through Login.gov or ID.me, using your Social Security number, address, and either an identity-document scan or credit-history questions.
- After login, select Review your full earnings record.
- Download or print the PDF showing each year’s earnings by employer.
What it shows. Year-by-year totals of reported wages, listed by employer, back to your first year of taxable work. Modern years usually show employer names; older years may show only Employer Identification Numbers.
What it does not show. Specific job sites, daily work assignments, who worked alongside you, what materials were on site, work paid in cash, or work performed outside the Social Security taxable wage system. Military service during active duty appears under special federal employer codes rather than the Navy’s name — for active-duty exposure documentation, your DD-214 and service records are more useful than your SSA earnings record.
If identity verification fails. Common reasons include a frozen credit file, no current credit history, identity-theft locks, or no current U.S. address. If online verification fails, the paper-form process below is the alternative.
The paper-form option: Form SSA-7050
If you can’t verify your identity online, Form SSA-7050-F4 (“Request for Social Security Earnings Information”) gets you the same record by mail.
The form is on ssa.gov — search “SSA-7050.” Print the current version directly from SSA; third-party copies sometimes lag behind revisions.
What you’ll need:
- Full legal name, including any prior names used during your work history
- Social Security number
- Date and place of birth
- The years you want covered (narrower ranges sometimes process faster)
- Your signature, with the form’s witness or notarization requirements followed exactly
- The applicable fee
Realistic timeline. Several months. There is no shortcut on SSA’s end. The most common reasons for additional delay are incomplete signatures, ambiguous date ranges, fee miscalculations, and unclear authority statements when the requestor is not the worker.
Where Social Security fits alongside DD-214 and NARA records
For Navy veterans, the Social Security earnings record is most useful for post-service civilian work — shipyard employment, shipbuilding contractor work, or trades work at Navy facilities after discharge. The record is generally less relevant for active-duty exposure documentation, where military service records and NARA archives are the primary sources.
The records that matter most for Navy asbestos claims:
- DD-214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty). Your primary active-duty service document. Block 7 lists duty stations; Block 11 lists your primary rating/specialty. This establishes which ships you served aboard and is the foundation of a VA presumptive claim.
- NARA ship deck logs and muster rolls. National Archives records confirming you were assigned to a specific vessel during a specific period, and what overhaul or maintenance operations were underway. Available via FOIA request to NARA. Useful when DD-214 is incomplete or lost.
- Social Security earnings record. Covers post-service employment. If you worked at a naval shipyard as a civilian after discharge — Newport News, Puget Sound, Bath Iron Works, Electric Boat — your SSA record will show that employment and the years of exposure.
- IRS wage and income transcripts (Form 4506-T). Last ten years of W-2 and 1099 data, typically delivered within two weeks for the taxpayer’s own request. More current than SSA records and often more granular.
- Union Local employment records. Work referrals, dispatch books, and dues records held by Local halls. Often the only source of specific job-site assignments for civilian shipyard workers.
- Pension and welfare fund records. Multi-employer plan records of contributions by employer and quarter. Usually obtained through subpoena in litigation.
These records cross multiple agencies and multiple legal authorities. Sequencing them, drafting the right requests, following up at the right cadence, and knowing which sources to use as substitutes when others fail is the work that’s normally handled by experienced investigators and attorneys in Navy asbestos cases.
Common questions
How long does it take? my Social Security online by the worker: same day. Paper SSA-7050: several months.
Is there a fee? my Social Security is free. Paper SSA-7050 has per-year fees, with higher fees for certified copies.
Can I get someone else’s earnings record? Generally no — earnings records are private to the worker. Exceptions include the personal representative of a deceased worker’s estate, or anyone with a court order. The decedent process is its own path.
Does the earnings record show my Navy job sites? No. The earnings record shows employers and total earnings by year — not specific vessels, not specific shipyard bays, not which contractor’s insulation was present. For active-duty Navy exposure, NARA ship records and deck logs are the relevant source. For post-service civilian work, union dispatch records and employer records fill in the site-specific detail.
What if I worked under cash or off-the-books? Those years won’t appear on the Social Security record. They can sometimes be reconstructed through co-worker testimony, photographs, dated records of the project, or contractor employment records.
What about my active-duty years — why don’t they show normal employment? Military service during active duty is reported to SSA under federal employer codes (typically “U.S. Government — Military Service”). The record won’t show “U.S. Navy” as a named employer the way a private employer would appear. For VA claims, your DD-214 is the authoritative proof of active-duty service — the SSA record is not needed for that purpose.
What if my Social Security number was used by someone else? If you see earnings from years or employers you never worked for, that is a separate identity issue. SSA has a process for correcting earnings records (Form SSA-7008). Discrepancies that matter for a legal claim are the kind of thing a professional investigation addresses.
When records are part of a claim
Reconstructing a work and service history is one piece of building a case for an asbestos-related illness. The other pieces — identifying which products and equipment were on each vessel or job site, which contractors and trades were present, what is known about the medical course of the illness — sit alongside the records work. For Navy veterans, that investigation typically starts with DD-214 and NARA records, then expands to SSA earnings and union records for post-service civilian employment.
If you have questions about a possible asbestos-related claim, consider speaking with a Navy asbestos attorney who handles these cases.