Reichenthal v. Harris
| Decision Date | 22 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | 79 C 1632 (JBW). |
| Parties | Irving REICHENTHAL et al., on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Patricia Roberts HARRIS, Secretary, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Arthur J. Fried, Legal Aid Society, New York City, for plaintiffs.
Edward R. Korman, U. S. Atty., Eastern District of New York by Marilyn Go, Asst. U. S. Atty., Brooklyn, N. Y., Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen. of the State of New York by Stephen M. Jacoby, Amy Juviler, Asst. Attys. Gen., New York City, for defendants.
Plaintiffs, poor people who are elderly, blind and disabled, seek additional monthly payments from the state and declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief against the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and the Director of New York State's Department of Social Services. They allege that the Secretary has not promulgated required regulations to rectify violations of federal laws by the Director and New York State. 42 U.S.C. § 1382g. Claims of denial of substantive and procedural due process and of equal protection are also made. All parties move for summary judgment.
For the past several years, as the federal government increased Supplementary Security Income Program (SSI) benefits to account for inflation, the state decreased its share of monthly payments to plaintiffs, resulting in an unchanged total monthly check to the recipients. Since 1975, the last time members of the class received an increased monthly check, the cost of living has risen 77%. Even in 1975 people who make up this class were supported at a bare subsistence level.
The federal government appears to have been somewhat more compassionate than the state. But New York has not, with a minor exception discussed below, reduced its total expenditures for all SSI recipients. It has utilized increased federal funds to raise the monthly payments to those even worse off than plaintiffs. This represents a legislative-executive judgment on the allocation of resources. As demonstrated below, no violation of the federal Constitution has occurred. Whether there has been a violation of federal statutes by the state depends on interpretive regulations not yet extant because the Secretary has neglected to adopt them. While the court recognizes plaintiffs' urgent need for assistance, the only relief it can afford is to order the Secretary to take immediate steps to determine the validity of New York's actions under applicable federal statutes.
Prior to 1974, individuals who were aged, blind or disabled were eligible to receive public assistance under state categorical programs of Aid to the Aged, Blind and Disabled ("AABD") that had been approved by the Secretary pursuant to the Social Security Act. New York State had such a program. Congress enacted the SSI plan effective January 1, 1974, to replace the AABD programs and provide cash benefits to individuals of low income and limited resources who are blind or disabled or have reached sixty-five. Pub.L. No. 92-603, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1381 et seq. This scheme includes, but is not limited to, individuals who had been receiving benefits under AABD. Uniform criteria and uniform payment amounts were established in place of the prior multiplicity of categorical eligibility requirements and payment amounts of the state operated systems.
Recognizing regional variation in living costs, Congress authorized each state to supplement the federal standard payment amount at whatever level it deemed appropriate. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1382e, 1382a(b)(6). A state can, as New York has, enter into an agreement to have the federal government administer the "optional" supplementary payments monthly by adding it to the single federal SSI check mailed by Washington. 42 U.S.C. § 1382e(d). Federal administration of the state optional supplementary payment is governed by the federal rules and regulations in effect for the SSI program. 42 U.S.C. § 1382e(b)(2) and 20 C.F.R. § 416.2005(d).
In addition to optional state supplementation, there are circumstances under which a state is required to make supplementary payments. Persons who were eligible for and receiving state-federal public assistance under AABD prior to the inception of SSI, were transferred to the federal SSI program, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1382c(a)(2) and (a)(3)(E), and were not required to file an application in order to establish their status as eligible individuals. An individual who had received assistance under a state plan for December, 1973 was "grandfathered" into the SSI program and was entitled to receive SSI benefits at a rate, including other income, not less than the total benefits and other countable income, that such an individual received under the repealed state programs in December, 1973. P.L. 93-66, 212(a); 42 U.S.C. § 1382(h).
Those whose AABD benefits were converted to the SSI program are entitled to receive the flat federal amount plus either the optional state supplementation or the mandatory state supplementation, whichever is greater. P.L. 93-66, 212(a)(3)(A); 42 U.S.C. § 1382(h). Federal portions of SSI benefits are adjusted periodically to reflect increases in the cost of living. 42 U.S.C. § 1382f. New York complies with the grandfather clause by providing a guarantee of an additional state payment in an amount which, when added to the federal benefit and other countable income, is equal to the individual's December, 1973 AABD cash grant. New York Social Services Law § 210. As the federal portion of plaintiffs' SSI increases, the state supplementary payment for these individuals decreases.
Because the federal statute did not require maintenance of a 1973 level to non-grandfathered individuals, these other recipients are said to receive "optional" payments. These monthly payments are generally below those of former AABD recipients. New York has revised its statutes annually to "pass along" the federal cost of living adjustments to recipients of optional payments; as a result their payments have gradually risen to a level approaching plaintiffs'. Stipulation ¶ 12.
In 1976, Congress enacted an amendment designed to encourage states to pass along to all SSI beneficiaries as a class all federal cost of living adjustments. It conditioned state eligibility for Title XIX participation (Medicaid) on there being in effect an agreement with the Secretary to continue to make optional and mandatory supplementary payments and to maintain such payments to individual SSI beneficiaries at levels no lower than the total (state plus federal) payments to any individual in effect in December, 1976. Alternatively, the state could maintain its total expenditures for all SSI recipients at an annual rate no lower than that of the prior year. 42 U.S.C. § 1382g provides:
The upshot of the statutory pattern is that the Secretary will not find the state out of compliance with the requirement to maintain its December, 1976 levels of payments to individual grandfathered recipients if the state's total SSI supplementation expenditures for the twelve-month period following a federal SSI cost-of-living increase are not less than the state's total SSI supplementation expenditures for the previous twelve month period. 42 U.S.C. § 1382g(b). Federal medicaid payments to New York are so great — a threatened cut-off of $1,879,107,000 for 1979 and some two billion dollars for 1980 is involved — that from a practical point of view the state has no real option; it must meet federal requirements.
New York State has elected to use funds generated by federal cost of living increases to the grandfathered class for the benefit of other SSI recipients receiving optional supplementation, who were receiving less each month than plaintiffs. There was, nonetheless, a decline of some $7,500,000 between the state's actual expenditures for supplementary payments to SSI recipients between fiscal years 1976-77 and 1977-78, although the actual and projected expenditures for 1978-79 and 1979-80 were greater than for 1976-77.
EXPENDITURES BY NEW YORK STATE FOR
SUPPLEMENTARY PAYMENTS TO
ALL SSI RECIPIENTS
----------------------------------------------
PERIOD AMOUNT
January 1, 1974 — June 30, 1974 State actual 100,485,672
July 1, 1974 — June 30, 1975 State...To continue reading
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