Should Puerto Ricans Receive Social Security Benefits?

In 2021, the Supreme Court heard a case, United States v. Vaello-Madero, arguing that a U.S. citizen who moved from New York to Puerto Rico still deserved to receive Supplemental Social Security benefits. José Luis Vaello-Madero suffered from an illness while living in New York in 2012 that left him unable to work, so he began receiving SSI disability benefits. After moving to Puerto Rico, he continued to collect benefits for several years until it was discovered that he was living in the U.S. territory, at which point the federal government filed a lawsuit to collect over $28,000 it had paid Vaello-Madero over a three-year period. The district court ruled in Vaello-Madero’s favor, saying that the exclusion of SSI benefits to those in Puerto Rico violated the equal-protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Attorney General William Tong of Connecticut wrote in a brief related to the case that, “Our federal aid programs are a lifeline to millions of families, but Americans in need in Puerto Rico, Guam, and other territories have been unfairly excluded from these safety nets. Rules excluding territories like Puerto Rico are built on old, racist theories of colonial governance from over a century ago, and there is no reason to continue this harmful discrimination.”^[1] The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

When the Supreme Court decided the case in 2022, they reversed the original district court decision—they upheld Congress’s decision not to extend certain federal benefits to Puerto Rico, noting that because Congress chose to treat residents of Puerto Rico differently from residents of the States for purposes of tax laws, it could do the same for benefits programs. Because Puerto Rico’s residents are exempt from most federal income, gift, estate, and excise taxes, the Supreme Court argued that there was a justification for likewise distinguishing residents of Puerto Rico from residents of the States for purposes of the SSI benefits program. Had it gone the other way, the Vaello-Madero decision would have potentially far-reaching consequences, with serious implications for the Puerto Rican people and the Puerto Rican economy.

What do you think about this case? Though counted as citizens, Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections, but can vote in presidential primaries and have non-voting representation in the House of Representatives. Puerto Ricans pay state, local, and income taxes, but no federal taxes. Should Puerto Ricans, who have been American citizens since 1917, be allowed all the benefits of mainland Americans?

Introduction

You’ve probably heard of the 1896 case, Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed for “separate but equal” facilities that essentially codified segregation in America. But have you heard of Downes v. Bidwell, a case tried by the same Supreme Court in 1901, that also codified racism? Plessy v. Ferguson was eventually overturned by the decision made in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), but the precedent set by the Downes v. Bidwell case remains in effect, even today. Why is that? What did this case decide? What factors led to its decision, and why is it relevant today? We will examine some of these questions in this historical hack. In order to better understand the context of the past and how that continues to affect our present day, we are also going to practice interpreting several primary source quotes from this time period.

Codified Racism

First, a little bit of review. When the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, the United States had to answer the question of whether or not people in the newly acquired territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines should be considered citizens, a question the country had never faced before. Since the Civil War, the U.S. had admitted ten more states to the Union (Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah). These states had all been former territories, but they were different. By the time the statehood question came around, their Indigenous populations were relatively small, and the territories were inhabited by settlers, most of whom were White. Instead of remaining territories, these places were invited to become states.

In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, however, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were not welcomed on a path toward statehood. What is it that shifted during the turn of the century that led the U.S. to approach these newly acquired territories in a different way? Well, it had to do with race and the ideas of Social Darwinism. Darwinistic ideas of “survival of the fittest” were applied to society and used as justification for some races supposedly being superior to others (which is now understood as having no empirical evidence).

Imperialistic Attitudes

What were some of the motivating factors of American imperialism? We can look at primary sources to answer this question. When the United States went to war with Spain in 1898, one British writer offered some advice to American policymakers as they expanded their empire. Rudyard Kipling was a poet and writer who was a famous supporter of the British Empire, and his stories and poems often dealt with the British Empire. In “The White Man’s Burden”, he offered that advice. Take a moment to read it below.

Roosevelt, Mahan, and others were influenced by ideas like Kipling’s when they went to war in 1898: Roosevelt enclosed a copy of the poem to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, saying that “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.”^[3]

Just a few years later, in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt spoke out on how he thought the U.S. government should treat Native Americans. “In the schools the education should be elementary and largely industrial. The need of higher education among the Indians is very, very limited…The ration system, which is merely the corral and the reservation system, is highly detrimental to the Indians. It promotes beggary, perpetuates pauperism, and stifles industry. It is an effectual barrier to progress.”^[4]

Hopefully, by now you are starting to see how these attitudes and beliefs held by those in power influenced the world in which they lived. It might seem easy to dismiss Social Darwinism today—its proponents often had an extremely weak grasp even of actual Darwinism, let alone more complex science. And yet, this seemingly primitive ideology wielded tremendous power in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It motivated large-scale military buildups in the United States, justified imperial expansion, and rationalized placing people of color in subordinate positions. It didn’t just motivate empire-building, but also shaped it in very specific ways.

Other Justifications for Expansion

Social Darwinism created a few different justifications for expansion. It promised benefits for the colonizer and empire-builder. Because it was predicated on competition between similar groups, it was also cast in defensive terms: the expansion of an American empire would ultimately safeguard the country. And lastly, it was even used as an argument to “help” other races. Let’s take a look at an example.

Roosevelt saw a world in which other powerful countries like Great Britain and France, or Japan in Asia would seek out conquest and expansion if the United States did not. Because competition made countries powerful, to avoid it would doom the United States. Moreover, in the view of Roosevelt and others, taking up empire as a goal would help the peoples they conquered in the long run.

These perspectives are important to understand why so many Americans embraced the so-called logic of imperialism in the 1890s. Contrary to stereotypes, many of the attitudes were not new in American life: they were a different form of expansion, but not a completely new one. Their attitudes were based on beliefs that justified their own superiority in various ways compared to different races and ethnicities. It also justified their own political and social station in the world. They also cast their beliefs in terms of how it would benefit supposedly inferior groups by “uplifting” them, framing it in charitable terms.

The embrace of Social Darwinism affected how American imperialists behaved in their new territories. Because Americans thought of themselves as superior in many ways, they tried to pass on their own values as part of the process of “uplift.” In the Philippines, the United States sent teachers, beginning in 1901, who would teach Filipinos certain American values and educate them to be like Americans. These teachers were known as “Thomasites” because they came on a boat called the Thomas. They taught civics based on U.S. government, English, and American sports such as baseball to Filipinos.