I'll post soon about the status of the litigation on the constitutionality of the prohibition on SSI payments for residents of most U.S. territories, particularly Puerto Rico and Guam, and what may be done about the practical problems this may cause. For now, just take it from me that there's a real chance that by this time next year the Supreme Court will have held that the prohibition on payment of SSI benefits for American citizens residing in U.S. territories is unconstitutional.
Suddenly extending SSI to all U.S. territories is a big deal even if you live in Boise or Biloxi or Boston. There are estimates that as many as 700,000 Puerto Ricans could qualify for SSI and 24,000 Guamanians could qualify. There would also be some in the smaller Virgin Islands. If this happens as a result of a Supreme Court decision, all of them will become potentially eligible all at once. They won't all file claims the next day but an avalanche of claims won't be long in coming. There are a lot of poor people in these territories.
Social Security's resources on the ground in these territories isn't ready. The field office employees in the territories probably haven't been trained in taking SSI claims and doing SSI income and resource determinations. They're certainly not experienced. How long do you think it will take to get them up to speed with windfall offsets? The local field offices, Disability Determination Services (DDS) and hearing offices may need to more than double in size just to handle their normal workload after the huge backlog of cases is processed.
The only way to handle this avalanche of cases will be for mainland employees to help out but how much slack have you noticed at Social Security?
One particular problem with this possible influx of cases is language. Social Security has plenty of employees who speak Spanish for its normal workload but would there be enough to handle the avalanche of Puerto Rican cases? Guam presents the problem of people who only speak Chamorro or Tagalog.
Speaking of Guam, they're on the other side of the International Date Line. Their time zone is 10 hours later than Eastern Time, 7 hours later than Pacific Time. I suppose that Guamanians will be encouraged to call in the evening their local time but the time zone difference is significant.
The strains for the Social Security Administration caused by a sudden extension of SSI to U.S. territories won't just be experienced locally. If this happens, it will cause staffing shortages all over the
country and there will be increased backlogs at teleservice centers, field offices, DDS offices and hearing
offices all over the country.
If this happens as a result of a Supreme Court decision the agency will not have two or three years to prepare for the onslaught. Social Security can't just do nothing about these cases until it can get an increased appropriation, rent more office space and hire and train new employees. If these claimants have a constitutional right to benefits, they have a constitutional right to the same treatment as other U.S. citizens -- and, yes, those born in these territories are U.S. citizens.
Coming tomorrow: What's the status of the litigation over SSI for U.S. territories?
3 comments:
Mississippi ranks 50th in states' median household income at just under $40K
US Virgin Islands: $37.2K
American Samoa: $23.9K
N.Mariana Islands: $20.0K
Puerto Rico: $19.8K, or less than 50% of the poorest state in the country (and with a larger population at 3.2 million)
Yea, that's going to be a LOT of claimants.
Assuming those figures and presuming SSA applies the ISM 1/3 living offset (because they always do), that would be approximately 4.5 billion a year. So that would be an increase of about 10% of the total SSI benefit payments historically. Sounds like a lot, but it's important to keep in mind that SSI is funded through the general fund, not the trust funds.
It would be interesting to see the effect dumping 4 billion a year into Puerto Rico's economy would have. Their GDP was 101 billion in 2018, so it would probably have a pretty significant impact. SSI isn't taxable, but people spend money locally, particularly given Puerto Rico's limited internet infrustructure. Would probably be pretty stimulative.
As to SSA investing in infrastructure to support the in-flow of new claims, I doubt it. They will probably just add an ALJ or two to the local OHOs (they exist because T2 claims are already available in the territories), and expect the local field offices to use the existing infrastructure. At best, maybe they will try and enhance the internet access to the field offices so that remote services can be used more efficiently.
Also, I suspect SSA is pretty pleased that they got rid of the English-language requirement of the gridrules.
I have done hearings remotely via VTC in Guam with ALJs in West LA. But it was like very rare maybe 1-2 in 10 years.
Never had hearings in Puerto Rico. But a quick look at the current stats shows a low number of cases processed. They are processing 1.90 dispositions per day per ALJ and the hearing wait time is 9.5 months. Pretty sure this will jump up dramatically with more SSI claimants.
I wonder if they will put more lower granting ALJs there in Puerto Rico. My hunch is they will.
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