Opinion ID: 423695
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Disadvantaged Class

Text: 24 Section 10 disfavors those needy persons eligible for Pennsylvania general assistance relief who are between the ages of 18 and 45 and who do not fit within one of the Act's enumerated categories of chronically needy. The provision denies certain benefits to those in the disadvantaged class on the basis of age, although it attempts to soften the effect of that denial for persons deemed either especially vulnerable or worthy. 3 As the Supreme Court made clear in Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 312-314, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2566-67, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976), age classifications do not trigger heightened scrutiny; they are subject only to rational relation review. 25 The statute challenged in Murgia required all uniformed state police officers to retire at the age of fifty. Explaining its reasons for applying the relatively relaxed rational relationship standard of equal protection analysis, the Supreme Court stated that the class of uniformed police officers over fifty did not possess the characteristics of a suspect class: 26 [A] suspect class is one saddled with disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process. While the treatment of the aged in this Nation has not been wholly free of discrimination, such persons, unlike say, those who have been discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin, have not experienced a history of purposeful unequal treatment or been subjected to unique disabilities on the basis of stereotyped characteristics not truly indicative of their abilities. The class subject to the compulsory retirement feature of the Massachusetts statute consists of uniformed state police officers over the age of 50. It cannot be said to discriminate only against the elderly. Rather, it draws the line at a certain age in middle life. But even old age does not define a discrete and insular group, United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152-153, n. 4 [58 S.Ct. 778, 783-84, n. 4, 82 L.Ed. 1234] (1938), in need of extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process. Instead, it marks a stage that each of us will reach if we live out our normal span. Even if the statute could be said to impose a penalty upon a class defined as the aged, it would not impose a distinction sufficiently akin to those classifications that we have found suspect to call for strict judicial scrutiny. 27 Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. at 313-314, 96 S.Ct. at 2566-67. See also Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. 93, 96-97, 99 S.Ct. 939, 942, 59 L.Ed.2d 171 (1979). If old age does not define a discrete and insular group in need of extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process, then certainly those between 18 and 45 cannot constitute such a group.