BACKGROUND
Under the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (in effect until 1997), states determined eligibility for welfare assistance based on family size and income. Most states, including California, provided a modest increase in a family’s monthly cash grant when a new child was born. In the 1980s, the federal and state government enacted policies that focused on moving recipients into the workforce to eliminate welfare dependency.

In 1992, California voters rejected Proposition 165, which would have implemented a child exclusion rule to deny additional cash benefits when a child was born into a family already receiving welfare. However, in 1994, the Legislature approved the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule, which denies aid to a child who is born into a family that has already received cash assistance for 10 months or more.

Child exclusion or MFG rules were intended to discourage families on welfare from having additional children, under the assumption that some mothers on welfare intentionally got pregnant to receive increased benefits. However, in 2001, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported, “We cannot conclude the family cap policies reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock births . . . or change the size of the TANF caseload.”

EXISTING LAW
The current federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant program allocates funds to the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, which disseminates these funds to eligible families. Federal law neither mandates nor prohibits child exclusion, allowing for state discretion. California’s passage of its 1994 MFG rule makes it one of the 23 states that impose a child exclusion rule.
SUMMARY
The Provide for Each Child Act of 2007 would repeal California’s child exclusion rule and allow for additional cash assistance for children born into families already receiving temporary aid. The California government’s goal of ending child poverty is unattainable if children born into poverty are excluded from receiving cash benefits. Contributing to deepened child poverty will have a negative impact on the children themselves as well as on the state. Research has linked child poverty to poor health, developmental, and social outcomes in adulthood. In the long term, the impact of these outcomes will cost the state far more money than providing cash benefits to newborns.

Repealing the child exclusion rule would save the state money in the short term as well, because it would simplify county administration and eliminate costs associated with notifying welfare recipients of this law and requiring social service workers to determine the MFG status of a child through evaluation and administrative hearings.

STATUS
• Introduced 12/4/2006
• Passed Assembly Human Services 3/27
• Now in Assembly Appropriations

CO-SPONSORS
• East Bay Community Law Center
• Women of Color Resource Center

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Please Contact:
Kimberly Alvarenga
Women of Color Resource Center
510-444-2700 x303
www.coloredgirls.org

 

Last updated on December 26th, 2005 by Molly Klett