By Noticel - Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is one of the few welfare programs that has a national character, does not depend on contributions from the states, and the eligibility criteria do not consider where the person lives but his or her medical and economic condition, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court must uphold the decisions of lower courts that decreed the applicability of the program to the island.
With this argument, 37 professors specializing in U.S. government welfare programs turned to the Supreme Court yesterday as friends of the court to urge an end to discrimination against U.S. citizens who, because they only reside in Puerto Rico, do not have access to SSI.
It is the most technically weighty argument in an avalanche of friend-of-the-court appearances that, as of Tuesday, totaled 25, all in favor of upholding the First Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in US v. Vaello Madero, which decreed the application of SSI to Puerto Rico residents.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court scheduled the oral argument hearing in the case for November 9.
The teachers' arguments could provide the federal Supreme Court justices with a more administrative and less politically charged argument to uphold the application of SSI and, it is hoped, that through an extension of SSI, parity will also come from the application of other federal benefit programs to the territories. It is estimated that at least 350,000 island residents could benefit from SSI.
The fight before the Supreme Court is one side of the issue, the other is that President Joseph Biden, who did not withdraw the court challenge to the extension of the programs' application, asked Congress in his budget request to extend to the territories the application of the programs, or at least of SSI, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
"The purpose of SSI was to create a 'fully federal' program and to nationalize eligibility and benefit standards, thus empowering people with disabilities to pursue their lives on a national level, free from interference by states or territorial boundaries," the professors said.
"The national SSI scheme reflects the fundamental notion, embraced by Congress and this court, that people with disabilities are entitled to lead dignified lives no matter where they live... The whole point of disability assistance is to provide a minimum of support to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind and lead dignified lives no matter where they live," they added.
Addressing some of the federal government's arguments against applying SSI to the island, such as the cost it would represent to the federal treasury, the professors reviewed the ways in which multiple federal programs treat the territories and found that, most importantly, what it requires are minor adjustments to reach parity. "Parity in the provision of public benefits, then, may not be as broad and disruptive as the federal government suggests," they opined.
On the other hand, they recalled that each person benefiting from the programs can undergo positive, life-changing turns. "Deprivation levels are high in the territories. Taken together, people in the territories suffer from the highest levels of unemployment, the lowest median and per capita incomes, and the lowest living standards of all U.S. citizens... The human cost is staggering: the poverty rate (in Puerto Rico) was 43.1% in 2018, dwarfing the 13.1% rate nationally," they noted.
In addition to the professors, appearing as friends of the court was the National Disabilities Rights Network, which advocates for services for people with disabilities and which noted that the federal government's arguments against parity are fundamentally discriminatory and impermissible. "(The government) advances a new, marginally more polite way of asking the court to confuse separate with equal," they commented.
The nine plaintiffs in Peña Martínez v. HHS, which is also about parity for three programs for the island, including SSI, and which is subject to the Supreme Court's determination in the Vaello Madero case, took another route in their appearance and attacked the federal government's argument that Puerto Rico residents are not entitled to parity because they do not contribute to the treasury. On the contrary, since 2000, the IRS has collected nearly $80 billion in taxes on various bases in Puerto Rico, including corporate taxes. The amount is comparable to Vermont and Wyoming and more than what was collected in six states.
The University of Puerto Rico School of Law also appeared to highlight the social and economic problems that have been exacerbated in Puerto Rico after decades of discriminatory treatment by Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union, American Bar Association, League of United Latin American Citizens, LatinoJustice Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund, U.S. Citizens for Equal Protection, Inc. and the Medicaid and Medicare Advantage Products Association of Puerto Rico are also among those appearing to focus on the illegality of discriminatory treatment of the island.
To view the appearances in the case, click here.