BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1792
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 14, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 1792 (Gomez) - As Amended: April 1, 2014
Policy Committee: LaborVote:5-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Employment Development Department (EDD)
to collaborate with the State Department of Health Care
Services, the State Department of Social Services, and the State
Department of Education to identify and compile a list of
employers of a beneficiary of certain public assistance
programs. Specifically, this bill:
1)Defines employer as an individual or organization that employs
25 or more persons in this state, and specifies that employer
does not include specified public employers. Defines
beneficiary as an individual employed by an employer and
enrolled in a public assistance program (unless the individual
is enrolled by reason of disability of being over 65 years of
age). Defines public assistance program as the Medi-Cal
program, CalFresh, CalWORKS, and the Women, Infants and
Children program, as specified.
2)Requires the list compiled by EDD to include the employer's
name, address, and the total number of each employer's
employees who are beneficiaries.
3)Requires EDD to provide the list to the Department of Finance
(DOF). Further, requires DOF, in collaboration with EDD, to
determine the following:
a) The total cost to the state of the benefits provided to
each identified employer's employees under each public
assistance program.
b) The total cost to the state of the aggregated benefits
provided to each identified employer's employees.
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4)Requires the report to be annually transmitted to the
Legislature and posted on the DOF website no later than April
15 of each year, and to remain available to the public for at
least five years.
5)Specifies the list shall not include the names or any
identifying information of any individual beneficiary under a
public assistance program and shall be subject to all state
and federal confidentiality and privacy laws and regulations.
6)Provides that an employer who discharges or discriminates or
retaliates against an employee who enrolls in a public
assistance program or refuses to hire a beneficiary of a
public assistance program would be in violation of specified
provisions of existing law.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Ongoing GF costs to DSS of approximately $330,000 to $480,000
to support three to four additional IT personnel, and one-time
costs of approximately $165,000 for automation to process and
transmit social security numbers of recipients of aid under
any of the identified programs to the EDD.
2)One-time and ongoing costs of approximately $35,000 to $60,000
to EDD to develop a process for extracting and transmitting
data and ongoing costs to annual submit data. EDD estimates
there are 21 million recipients receiving aid from one of the
identified public assistance programs.
3)Unknown ongoing administrative costs to DOF to calculate the
total cost to the state of the benefits provided to each
identified employee under each public assistance program and
the aggregated benefits provided to each identified employee.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose. This bill requires EDD to identify and compile a list
of employers with employees who are enrolled in public
assistance programs. According to the sponsors of the
measure, the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, the United
Food and Commercial Workers Union, and SEIU Local 1000,
companies that pay low-wages with no benefits force an
increasing number of workers to rely on public assistance.
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Even working full-time, many minimum wage workers still
qualify for public assistance. Public assistance programs are
designed to help workers through tough times, such as the loss
of a job. They were not designed as a permanent subsidy to
low-wage employers.
The report proposed by this bill is intended to inform and
assist lawmakers in decision making about budget priorities
and public assistance funding and to address the trend toward
employers shifting the cost of providing benefits onto
taxpayers. According to the author, 24 states have already
released reports similar to the one required by this bill and
Massachusetts produced an annual report on employers with
workers on public health care programs.
2)Concerns. The Western Center on Law and Poverty (Western
Center) supports the effort to bring sunshine by requiring the
disclosure of employers who have employees receiving public
assistance, but has several concerns with this bill.
Primarily, Western Center argues the bill should be amended to
exclude employees hired through CalWORKs subsidized
employment. They note that subsidized employment is a
CalWORKs Welfare-to-Work activity in which a participant's
employer is partially or wholly reimbursed for wages and/or
training costs. They contend that, without carving out the
subsidized employees from the list of employees that count
toward the publically disclosed number of employees on public
assistance, this proposal carries the danger of discouraging
participation by employers. Western Center would like to see
this bill establish a separate report of the employers
participating in the subsidized employment program as a way to
improve information the Legislature has about this program.
In addition, Western Center states that, while this bill takes
important steps to protect workers from retaliation in cases
where disclosure of receipt of public benefits could result in
discrimination of an employee, they are concerned that these
protections are not strong enough.
3)Opposition . A coalition of groups, including the California
Chamber of Commerce, opposes this bill and argues that,
instead of enacting policies to help low-income workers or
provide the Legislature with valuable information about how to
help employers compete while providing better wages and health
care, this bill creates a "list of shame" that would expose
California employers to liability, targeted media attacks and
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protests. They state that by highlighting those employers
that "create the greatest burden on the state," the measure
ignores the fact that even employers who pay lower wages and
do not provide health benefits still contribute greatly to the
state economy and keep millions of Californians from being
completely dependent on public assistance. Opponents also
argue that this bill creates new grounds for litigation by
prohibiting retaliation or discrimination against an employee
who enrolls in a public assistance program or refuses to hire
an individual because he or she is enrolled in a public
assistance program.
4)Prior legislation.
a) AB 1840 (Jerome Horton) of 2006 required the Department
of Health Services and the Managed Risk Medical Insurance
Board to collaborate in preparing a report that identifies
all employers who employ 25 or more persons who are
beneficiaries, or who support beneficiaries, enrolled in
the Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, and Access for Infants and
Mothers (AIM) programs. AB 1840 was vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger.
b) AB 89 (Jerome Horton) of 2005 was substantially similar
to AB 1840, and was similarly vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger.
Analysis Prepared by : Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916)
319-2081