Territorial delegates give Supplemental Security Income proposal another shot

By Pacaific Island Times News Staff

Territorial delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives have reintroduce the Supplemental Security Income Equality Act, which would extend the Supplemental Security Income program to Guam, Puerto Rico the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

“This is about equality—plain and simple,” Guam Del. James Moylan said. “Americans living in the territories should not be treated as second-class citizens.”

The bill is coauthored by Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands), Rep. Aumua Amata Radewagen (R-American Samoa) and Rep. Pablo José Hernández (D-Puerto Rico).

“By reintroducing this bipartisan bill, we are standing up for the principle that geography should never determine access to basic federal support,” Moylan said. “It is long past time for our people to receive the benefits they have been unfairly denied for far too long.”

SSI provides assistance to the aged, blind and disabled with low incomes, and it is available to citizens in the 50 states, District of Columbia and the Northern Marianas, but not the other territories.

“This legislation is not only morally imperative but fiscally responsible—without federal SSI support, territorial governments are forced to shoulder these costs alone, straining their limited budgets while providing inadequate assistance to those who need it most,” Plaskett said.

“This legislation represents a critical step toward ending the second-class treatment of Americans in the territories, who feel the weight of discrimination when they are automatically denied access to SSI benefits,” she added.

Radewagen argued that essential services such as SSI should not be determined by geography.

In Puerto Rico, Hernandez said roughly 22 of the population are living with a disability, who are unjustly excluded from the SSS program, simply because of where they live.

 “This vital extension would also finally allow Puerto Rican children with disabilities, who have long been excluded, to receive the federal assistance they urgently need,” Hernandez said.

The territories’ exclusion from the SSI program has been a standing issue that highlights the second-class status of Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress can exclude U.S. territories from some federal disability benefits available to those who live in the 50 states, upholding precedent cases related to the ambiguous status of U.S. territories.

"Congress sometimes legislates differently with respect to the territories, including Puerto Rico, than it does with respect to the states," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the United States v. Vaeillo Madero case involving the Supplemental Security Income program.

Subscribe to

our digital

monthly edition