The territories (PR/Guam/USVI/American Samoa excluded from SSI; the NMI included)

If you live and work in a US territory, you may carry a quiet, unanswered worry: that Social Security is a mainland thing that somehow skips you — that you pay in but won't get anything back, or that the island is simply "outside the system." It's a reasonable fear, because the rules genuinely do differ by program, and almost no one sits you down to explain which parts reach you and which don't. So let's put the calm, load-bearing fact first: work in any US territory — Puerto Rico included — is fully covered by Social Security. You pay FICA (the payroll tax), you earn work credits, you build an earnings record, and your retirement, disability, and survivor benefits are figured on the exact same formula as in any of the 50 states.

We'll follow one man the whole way: Luis Rivera, a retired hotel worker in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He paid Social Security taxes out of every paycheck across a long hotel career, and his retirement check arrives every month — no asterisk, no penalty for the address. Hold onto that, because there is one real twist worth understanding precisely rather than fearing vaguely: a separate program called SSI — the needs-based payment for low-income people who are aged, blind, or disabled — was never extended to Puerto Rico or three of the other territories. That's a different program with a different history, and confusing it with the benefits you *earn* is the single biggest mistake people make here. This lesson keeps the two cleanly apart, and walks the whole picture — what you get, what you can't, why, and exactly where to apply.

Luis Rivera is 70 (born 1956), and he spent his working life in the hotels of San Juan, Puerto Rico — front desk, then a supervisor role, decades of steady covered work. Every one of those paychecks had Social Security tax taken out, the same as a hotel worker's in Orlando or Las Vegas. So when Luis retired, he did what any covered worker does: he claimed his Social Security retirement benefit, and it pays him every month. His career counted, in full.

The reason Luis is the right guide is that his situation holds two truths at once, and keeping them separate is the whole skill of this lesson. On one side is what he *earned*: OASDI — Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, Social Security's formal name — his by right of a lifetime of FICA taxes. On the other side is a program he *cannot* get where he lives: SSI, the needs-based check funded not by his taxes but by federal general revenue. If Luis's retirement income were very low and he needed needs-based help, a resident of Florida in his shoes could apply for SSI — but Luis, in Puerto Rico, would instead be pointed to a territory program called AABD. Same person, same need, different door, purely because of the address. Let's build the picture layer by layer, starting with the part that's never in doubt.

Start with the fact that changes the whole feeling: Social Security's earned benefits cover work in all five US territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — exactly as they cover work in the 50 states. That's the retirement benefit (OASI), the disability benefit (SSDI / DI), and survivor benefits for your family. In every territory, workers pay FICA, earn the same work credits, accumulate the same earnings record, and receive benefits on the same schedule and the same formula. There is no territory discount, no reduced rate, no separate rulebook for the math.

For Luis, that means his hotel work in San Juan produced the same coverage as the identical work would have in Miami — dollar for dollar in FICA, credit for credit. This has never been in question, has never been the subject of the SSI decisions we're about to cover, and is not affected by any of them. It's worth saying plainly because the SSI confusion leads some people to believe they get *nothing* from Social Security in the territories — and that belief can cost someone the retirement or disability benefit they actually earned. The earned benefits are yours; keep that anchor as we add the complication.

Now the twist, stated precisely so it can't be mistaken for the anchor above. SSI — Supplemental Security Income — is the needs-based monthly payment for people who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled and have very limited income and resources. It is run by SSA, but it is *not* paid from Social Security taxes — it comes from federal general revenue, and it's a separate program with its own rules. When Congress created SSI in 1972, it did not extend it to Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, or American Samoa. The statute simply does not apply in those four territories, and Congress has not changed that since.

The consequence is stark and worth naming without flinching: a resident of Puerto Rico who is 70, blind, or disabled with almost no income cannot receive SSI — even if that same person would qualify in every other respect living in Florida. The disqualifier is the address, nothing else. This is exactly the line Luis lives on. He receives his Social Security retirement benefit — earned, covered, untouchable. But if his retirement income were low enough that he needed needs-based assistance, he would be turned toward Puerto Rico's own program, AABD, not toward SSI the way a mainland resident would. Two programs, two completely different territorial rules — hold them apart.

Here's the counterpoint that keeps the rule honest, and the detail most people miss: the exclusion is not universal across the territories. The Northern Mariana Islands (NMI) is the sole US territory where SSI operates. When the NMI entered its political union with the United States under the Covenant (effective 1978), Congress included the NMI in SSI as part of that agreement — a treaty-style obligation that the other territories never had. So the NMI sits in every list of SSI-eligible jurisdictions.

That gives you the full, memorizable eligible list for SSI: the 50 states + DC + the Northern Mariana Islands — and nowhere else. The NMI is the critical counterexample: it proves the territorial exclusion is a specific set of statutory choices, not some blanket rule that "territories don't get SSI." Four territories are out; one is in. If you ever find yourself generalizing to "the territories don't have SSI," the NMI is the fact that corrects you — and it's a favorite quiz trap precisely because it's easy to forget.

If the SSI exclusion sounds like it should be unconstitutional — treating US citizens differently based on which US soil they live on — you're not the first to think so, and the question went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case is United States v. Vaello Madero, and it's worth knowing exactly, because it's the legal backbone of everything above. José Luis Vaello Madero received SSI while living in New York, then moved to Puerto Rico in 2013. SSA discovered the move and sued to recover the SSI payments it had made after he relocated — because those payments shouldn't have continued once he lived in Puerto Rico. He fought back, arguing the exclusion violated the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment.

The Supreme Court decided the case on April 21, 2022, by a vote of 8–1, and upheld Congress's authority to exclude Puerto Rico from SSI. The majority rested on Congress's plenary (broad) power over the territories under the Territorial Clause (Article IV, §3), and noted that Puerto Rico residents are generally exempt from most federal income taxes on locally sourced income — a different tax-and-benefit balance than in the states. Justice Sotomayor was the lone dissenter. The citation to remember is 596 U.S. ___ (2022) (docket No. 20-303).

So if a low-income aged, blind, or disabled resident of Puerto Rico can't get SSI, what *can* they get? Puerto Rico administers its own needs-based program: AABD — Aid to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled. It serves the same groups SSI serves and plays the same role — a cash floor for people with very little — but it's a different animal in three important ways. It is federally match-funded, but through the Medicaid FMAP mechanism (the federal medical-assistance percentage), and that federal money is capped by statute rather than open-ended. It is Puerto Rico–administered and Puerto Rico–budgeted — you apply through the territory's Departamento de la Familia, not through SSA. And because the funding is a fixed pot stretched across everyone who qualifies, its maximum payments are far lower than the federal SSI FBR.

How much lower? Put the two side by side. The federal SSI FBR — the most SSI pays an individual per month before any state supplement — is $994/month in 2026. Reported AABD maximums in Puerto Rico run on the order of roughly $80/month for an aged recipient — about one-twelfth, or ~8%, of the federal figure. (Treat that $80 as approximate and reported, not an exact locked number — Puerto Rico's program figures aren't cleanly machine-readable, and the confirmed, load-bearing point is the *scale*, not the cent.) The practical meaning for Luis and others in his position is honest and important: the safety net exists, but it is dramatically thinner than the 50-state, DC, and NMI equivalent. Someone who would receive close to $994 in a state might receive a small fraction of that in Puerto Rico.

Pull it all together into a single grid. For every US territory, three things matter: is OASDI (retirement/disability/survivors) covered, does SSI operate, and what's the needs-based alternative if SSI doesn't. Read down the OASDI column first — it's yes the whole way down, every territory, no exceptions. Then read the SSI column — no, no, no, no, and then the one yes at the bottom. That shape — a solid column of earned coverage, and a single break in the needs-based column — is the entire lesson in one look.

One more time, because it's the pair of facts worth leaving with: OASDI everywhere; SSI only in the NMI, among the territories. Everything else in this lesson — the 1972 exclusion, Vaello Madero, AABD, the policy debate — hangs off that single split.

There's a third program in the picture, and the good news continues: Medicare — Part A (hospital) and Part B (medical) — also follows the worker. Because Medicare eligibility is built on the same covered-work basis as OASDI (you earn it through the Medicare payroll tax over a working life), territory residents with covered work get Medicare just like anyone in the states. Crucially, Medicare eligibility is not affected by the SSI exclusion — the two have nothing to do with each other. Luis gets Medicare on the strength of his covered San Juan hotel career, right alongside his Social Security retirement check.

Knowledge is only useful if it turns into the right door to knock on. Here's the practical guide for a territory resident: what's available, and where each thing is actually applied for. The one rule that ties it together — the earned benefits and Medicare go through SSA; the needs-based alternatives go through your territory — and none of it ever costs a fee to apply for.

• Earned benefits and Medicare → SSA. Luis claimed his retirement benefit and got his Medicare through SSA — ssa.gov, 1-800-772-1213, or his San Juan field office. Same process as any state.
• AABD (Puerto Rico) → the Departamento de la Familia. This is a *territory* program, applied for directly and for free. Anyone charging you to "file" it is running a scam (next section).
• In the NMI, SSI → SSA. The one territory where SSI is on the menu; you apply the same way a state resident would.
• Not sure which door? Free, unbiased help exists — the SSA at 1-800-772-1213 for the earned benefits and Medicare, and the territory's own social-services office for the needs-based programs. L163 covers getting served where you live in full.

The SSI exclusion is one of the live political and legal debates in Social Security, and an honest lesson owes you both sides — not a verdict. So here is the disagreement laid out fairly. Those who defend the current law point to Congress's plenary power over the territories (upheld in Vaello Madero), to the fact that residents of the excluded territories generally pay no federal income tax on locally earned income — a genuinely different tax-and-benefit balance — and to the reality that SSI is a general-revenue program whose reach is Congress's to set. Those who argue for reform point out that territory residents pay FICA payroll taxes exactly like mainland residents and earn OASDI on the same terms; that Puerto Rico residents are US citizens who had no vote in the Congress that set and keeps this rule; that federal programs treat the territories inconsistently on needs-based aid; and that the human cost is concrete — AABD pays a small fraction of SSI, so the poorest aged, blind, and disabled residents receive far less.

Both of those are real arguments, held by serious people, and this course does not tell you which is right — that's yours to weigh. What we *can* state plainly is the current law, so you're never confused about the facts while you form your own view: under current law, SSI does not operate in Puerto Rico, Guam, the USVI, or American Samoa, and does operate in the Northern Mariana Islands. Whether that *should* change is a matter for Congress and the voters — and because it's a statutory choice (as Vaello Madero underlined), it can change without another constitutional case.

The SSI exclusion creates a cruel opening for a scam, precisely because it exploits real confusion about a real rule. The pitch: "We can get you SSI in Puerto Rico — just apply through us and pay a fee," or a fake "territory benefits specialist" who offers to "unlock" a benefit for you. It targets exactly the people the system genuinely left out, and dresses the lie in the language of help.

The tell that ends every version of it is a fact you now hold cold: SSI does not operate in Puerto Rico, Guam, the USVI, or American Samoa — so no one can "unlock" it for you there. There is nothing to file, no fee that changes that, no specialist with a back door. (The NMI is the only territory with SSI, and there you apply at SSA, for free.) If someone claims they can get you SSI in Puerto Rico for a fee, that is a scam — full stop. The legitimate Puerto Rico program is AABD, and you apply for it directly and for free through the Departamento de la Familia — never through a paid middleman, and never by handing your SSN or bank login to a stranger. If you're targeted, it's not your fault — report it to SSA's Office of the Inspector General (oig.ssa.gov), the SSA (1-800-772-1213), and the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov). Reporting is how the scheme gets stopped; the full treatment of application scams is L155.

If you came into this believing that living in a territory meant Social Security skipped you — that you paid in for nothing, or that the island was outside the system — that belief was understandable, and you're far from alone in it. When one program really *is* excluded and no one explains the rest, the confusion is the predictable result of a genuinely complicated map, not a failure on your part. So here's the steadying version, plainly.

What you *earned* is fully yours. If you worked covered jobs, your retirement, disability, and survivor benefits are the same as any state's — Luis's monthly check proves it — and Medicare comes with them. If you live in the Northern Marianas, SSI is available too. If you're in Puerto Rico, AABD exists for needs-based help, thinner though it is. And the program's do-overs — withdrawing a new claim, suspending and restarting a benefit, the four-level appeal — apply to your covered claims here exactly as anywhere. You are not invisible to Social Security. For your own situation, free help is real: the SSA at 1-800-772-1213 for the earned benefits and Medicare, Puerto Rico's Departamento de la Familia for AABD, and nonprofit counselors and legal-aid groups (L153) at no cost — and no one who genuinely helps will charge you to "unlock" a benefit or ask for your SSN by surprise.

The questions people in the territories actually ask the first time Social Security and "where I live" come up in the same sentence.

• "I work in Puerto Rico — do I pay into Social Security?" Yes. FICA is withheld from your pay exactly like on the mainland, and that covered work earns your OASDI retirement, disability, and survivor benefits on the same formula. Your career counts, in full.
• "Can I get SSI in Puerto Rico?" No. SSI does not extend to Puerto Rico, Guam, the USVI, or American Samoa — Congress excluded them when SSI began in 1972. The Northern Marianas is the sole territory exception. Puerto Rico's alternative is AABD.
• "Why doesn't SSI apply in Puerto Rico?" Congress chose not to include the four territories when it created SSI in 1972, and the Supreme Court upheld that choice in Vaello Madero (2022) under its power over the territories. It's a statutory decision — Congress could extend SSI by law, but hasn't.
• "What's AABD, and is it the same as SSI?" AABD — Aid to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled — is Puerto Rico's needs-based program in SSI's place. It's federally match-funded but Puerto Rico–administered (through the Departamento de la Familia), and its maximum payments are far lower than the federal SSI FBR ($994/month in 2026). Same purpose, much thinner check.
• "Does SSI apply anywhere outside the 50 states?" Yes — DC and the Northern Mariana Islands. The NMI is the only territory with SSI, added under its 1978 Covenant. The full eligible list is 50 states + DC + NMI.
• "Does Medicare cover Puerto Rico residents?" Yes. Medicare follows covered work (the OASDI basis), so territory residents with a covered record get it — and the SSI exclusion does not affect Medicare. Enrollment timing is L121.
• "Can Congress change the SSI exclusion?" Yes. Vaello Madero held Congress *may* exclude the territories, not that it *must* — so it's a statutory decision Congress could change by law. Reform proposals exist; it's a live debate, and this lesson takes no side.
• "I got a call offering to get me SSI in Puerto Rico for a fee — is that real?" No — that's a scam. SSI doesn't operate in Puerto Rico, so there's nothing to "unlock." AABD is applied for free through the Departamento de la Familia. Report to oig.ssa.gov, 1-800-772-1213, and the FTC.

Pick a jurisdiction and the map answers the four questions this lesson raised: is OASDI covered (yes, everywhere), does SSI operate here (only the NMI, among territories), what's the needs-based alternative (AABD for Puerto Rico; each territory's own programs; SSI itself for the NMI and the states), and does Medicare reach you (yes, everywhere). It's pre-filled with Puerto Rico — Luis's territory — and includes a US state button so you can see the full-coverage baseline for contrast.

This illustrates the rules by jurisdiction, not your own benefit or a prediction — it never asks for your numbers. Your real record and estimate are on your Statement (L11/L16); the deep-teach of SSI in the territories is L86; getting served where you live is L163. For your own situation, free help is SSA at 1-800-772-1213, and, for Puerto Rico's AABD, the Departamento de la Familia — at no cost.

• OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance): the earned side of Social Security — retirement, disability, and survivor benefits. Covered in every US territory exactly like the 50 states; funded by FICA payroll taxes.
• SSI (Supplemental Security Income): the needs-based monthly payment for people 65+, blind, or disabled with very limited income — run by SSA but paid from federal general revenue, not Social Security taxes. Not available in Puerto Rico, Guam, the USVI, or American Samoa (deep-taught L86).
• The eligible-jurisdiction list (SSI): 50 states + DC + the Northern Mariana Islands — and nowhere else.
• The NMI exception: the Northern Mariana Islands is the sole territory where SSI operates, added under its 1978 Covenant with the United States — the counterexample to the four-territory exclusion.
• Vaello Madero: United States v. Vaello Madero, 596 U.S. ___ (2022) (decided April 21, 2022, 8–1; Sotomayor, J., dissenting) — upheld the SSI exclusion of Puerto Rico under Congress's plenary power over the territories (Territorial Clause). Held Congress *may* exclude, not that it *must*.
• AABD (Aid to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled): Puerto Rico's needs-based alternative to SSI — federally match-funded (via the Medicaid FMAP mechanism, capped) but Puerto Rico–administered (Departamento de la Familia), with maximums far below the federal SSI FBR.
• Federal Benefit Rate (FBR): SSI's maximum monthly federal payment — $994/month for an individual in 2026 (deep-taught L79). The yardstick AABD falls far short of.
• Medicare in the territories: Medicare (Part A/B) follows covered work on the OASDI basis, so it reaches territory residents and is not affected by the SSI exclusion (enrollment → L121).