The Work Number – Automated Income and Employment Verifications:
- The Work Number ensures that verifications are completed in the most secure and streamlined manner possible — 24 hours a day/7 days a week.
- The Work Number protects sensitive employee information by credentialing all verifiers prior to system use, authenticating the verifier at login, requiring the verifier to have Consumer Consent and
a valid Permissible Purpose for requesting the data, and monitoring and auditing verifier activity to ensure compliance with the above safeguards. - The Work Number helps reduce employer liability risk of unknowingly providing sensitive employee data to a non-authorized requestor.
- The Work Number reduces verification requests into HR, saving internal resources for other responsibilities.
The Work Number complies with The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which ensures that employees can see who is requesting their data and provides a mechanism to dispute data that they believe to be inaccurate.
Who is considered a verifier?
Any lending institution, property manager, government agency or other organization with a permissible purpose to verify employment or income of an employee.
What is considered a Social Services Verification?
Social Services Verifications are used in determining benefits eligibility for government-sponsored health and welfare programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), Medicaid, subsidized housing, etc.
What is a Permissible Purpose:
- An FCRA-compliant reason for requesting employment and/or income information. Common permissible purposes include: for the extension of credit, as part of an account review, for employment purposes, or when ordered by a court.
- Verifiers who use The Work Number are required to provide a permissible purpose for each employment or income data request.
Consumer Consent:
- Consumer consent is the employee’s authorization for a verifier to view their employment and income information.
- Most often, consent is provided by the employee when signing a loan application, lease agreement or similar document when requesting a service or benefit.
- That consent is generally good for the life of the obligation (until the loan is repaid or the account is closed, etc.) which gives the credit grantor the option to re-check employment and income status as part of their ongoing account review process.
- Consumer consent can be in the form of an ink signature, an electronic signature, or a salary key.
- A salary key is a unique, six-digit number that allows one-time access to an employee’s income information.
- In most cases, consent is provided at the point of application for a service or benefit via the employee’s signature, eliminating the need for a salary key.
- Only the employee can generate a salary key. If required, the employee can create a salary key by visiting www.theworknumber.com/employees.
For additional information about The Work Number or accessing your Employment Data Report, please visit www.theworknumber.com/employeesand use the log-in information below.
For Georgia State University employees, the default ID and PIN scheme is:
ID: Full Social Security Number (No Dashes/Spaces)
PIN Scheme: Last 4 of Social Security Number + YYYY of birth

Office Location
One Park Place South
Suite 330
Tel: 404-413-3302
Fax: 404-413-3301
Email: payroll@gsu.edu
Office Hours
Monday-Friday,
8:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m.
Mailing Address
Payroll Office
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3982
Atlanta, GA 30302