• 10
  • February
    2012

Many Americans first became aware while young students that the United States is comprised of more than just its 50 states. Along with those are a number of far-flung territories added over time while the country was in expansion mode, with its borders still uncertain and evolving.

Many territorial inhabitants pay U.S. federal taxes, through which they are eligible to participate in the Social Security Disability program. Eligibility has never been extended to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and a strong lobbying effort is now underway in Congress to change that.

Namely, there are currently two bills before Congress, one concerning the Virgin Islands alone and another -- authored by Puerto Rico's congressional delegate -- that seeks to extend SSI to that territory, the Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

Guam, American Samoa and Puerto Rico were all formally incorporated into the United States as territories in 1898. The Virgin Islands was purchased from Denmark in 1917 and became a territory the same year.

Their historical connection to the mainland is thus both long and continuous, and the residents seek full inclusion in SSI to help their elderly, blind and disabled residents who have little or no personal resources. As we have noted in past blog posts, SSI is funded through general tax revenues, unlike SSD, which is paid for through Social Security taxes.

Donna Christensen, the Virgin Island's congressional delegate, is not optimistic concerning the outcome for the bills, at least in the present political and economic climate.

"It's very hard to see them having success anytime in the near future, until we get out of the recession," she says.

Source: Virgin Islands Daily News, "Congress asked to add SSI for V.I." Joy Blackburn, Jan. 28, 2012