BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 492
Page 1
Date of Hearing: January 12, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Kansen Chu, Chair
AB 492
(Gonzalez) - As Amended March 26, 2015
SUBJECT: CalWORKs: welfare-to-work: supportive services
SUMMARY: Includes a diaper voucher among supportive services
provided to CalWORKs recipient families. Specifically, this
bill: Provides a voucher for diaper products in the amount of
$50 per month for each child two years of age and younger in a
CalWORKs assistance unit that is enrolled in child care as a
supportive service for a parent participating in
welfare-to-work.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes under federal law the Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF) program to provide aid and
welfare-to-work services to eligible families and, in
California, provides that TANF funds for welfare-to-work
services are administered through the California Work
Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program.
(42 U.S.C. 601 et seq., WIC 11200 et seq.)
2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used to
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determine eligibility for the program, including net income
below the Maximum Aid Payment (MAP), based on family size and
county of residence, which is around 40% of the Federal
Poverty Level. (WIC 11450, 11150 et seq.)
3)Establishes a 48-month lifetime limit of CalWORKs benefits for
eligible adults, including 24 months during which a recipient
must meet federal work requirements in order to retain
eligibility. (WIC 11454, 11322.85)
4)Requires necessary supportive services, including child care,
transportation, ancillary costs and personal counseling, as
specified, to be available to every CalWORKs participant in
order to facilitate his or her participation in the CalWORKs
program activity to which he or she is assigned or acceptance
of employment. (WIC 11323.2)
5)Makes paid child care available as a supportive service to
every CalWORKs participant with a dependent child in the
assistance unit who needs paid child care and is under 10
years of age or requires child care due to a physical, mental,
or developmental disability, or is under court supervision.
(WIC 11323.2 (a)(1)(A))
6)Authorizes a county to continue to provide welfare-to-work
services for up to the first 12 months of employment to former
CalWORKs participants who are no longer eligible for CalWORKs
due to a subsidized employment position, to the extent the
services are necessary for the individual to retain the
subsidized employment and the services are not available
through any other source. (WIC 11323.25)
7)Requires counties to provide CalWORKs applicants and
recipients a written notice, as specified, of the availability
of child care for the purpose of allowing a recipient to be
employed or participate in welfare-to-work activities. (WIC
11323.3)
8)Requires a county to excuse a CalWORKs recipient from
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welfare-to-work participation for good cause when the county
has determined the recipient has a condition or is faced with
a circumstance that temporarily prevents or significantly
impairs the recipient's ability to be regularly employed or to
participate in welfare-to-work activities, which includes a
lack of supportive services and a lack of access to child
care, as specified. (WIC 11320.3(f))
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS:
CalWORKs: The California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to
Kids (CalWORKs) program provides monthly income assistance and
employment-related services aimed at moving children out of
poverty and helping families meet basic needs. Federal funding
for CalWORKs comes from the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) block grant. The average 2016-17 monthly cash
grant for a family of three on CalWORKs (one parent and two
children) is $497.35, and the maximum monthly grant amount for a
family of three, if the family has no other income and lives in
a high-cost county, is $704. According to recent data from the
California Department of Social Services, around 497,000
families rely on CalWORKs, including over one million children.
Nearly 60% of cases include children under 6 years old.
Maximum grant amounts in high-cost counties of $704 per month
for a family of three, with no other income, means $23.46 per
day, per family, or $7.82 per family member, per day to meet
basic needs, including rent, clothing, utility bills, food, and
anything else a family needs to ensure children can be cared for
at home and safely remain with their families. This grant
amount puts the annual household income at $8,448 per year, or
42% of poverty. Federal Poverty Guidelines for 2015 show that
100% of poverty for a family of three is $20,090 per year.
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Welfare-to-Work requirements: Welfare-to-work activities within
the CalWORKs program include public or private sector subsidized
or unsubsidized employment; on-the-job training; community
service; secondary school, adult basic education and vocational
education and training when the education is needed for the
recipient to become employed; specific mental health, substance
abuse, or domestic violence services if they are necessary to
obtain or retain employment; and a number of other activities
necessary to assist a recipient in obtaining unsubsidized
employment.
Unless they are exempt, single parent adults must participate
for at least 30 hours per week in welfare-to-work activities,
whereas the minimum participation requirement for two-parent
families is 35 hours per week. After receiving aid for up to a
maximum of 24 months, adults without an exemption must work in
unsubsidized employment or participate in community services
activities for the minimum number of hours listed above. If a
CalWORKs recipient who is not exempt from participation does not
meet his or her welfare-to-work requirements, the recipient is
sanctioned for noncompliance, and that recipient's portion of
the family's grant subtracted from the amount provided to the
family to meet basic needs.
Child care as a supportive service: Under current law, the
support services available to CalWORKs participants include
child care, transportation costs, ancillary expenses, and
personal counseling, all of which require specified information
to be reported to the county in order to verify necessity. In
order to receive child care, for example, a CalWORKs participant
must verify employment, child care costs, and hours and dates of
employment, educational, or training activities. Title 22 of
the California Code of Regulations provides standards to which
licensed child care centers must adhere, including that a center
shall ensure each infant has sufficient changes of clothing and
diapers, and that each infant's clothing and diapers are to be
changed as often as necessary to ensure that each infant is kept
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clean and dry at all times.
Whereas ancillary expenses include the cost of books for school,
tools, clothing specifically required for a job, fees and other
necessary costs related to employment or education, there are no
such ancillary payments provided for the children who live in
CalWORKs families. As children sometimes rapidly grow out of
clothes, there is no supplement provided to their parents for
increased clothing costs, and for infants and toddlers, there is
currently no supplement to pay for diapers. While child care is
provided within the CalWORKs program to facilitate a parent's
participation in employment or another required welfare-to-work
activity, not having enough money to purchase diapers can result
in the loss of access to child care, which impedes a parent's
ability to go to work or participate in a welfare-to-work
activity, resulting in a sanction for non-compliance with the
program requirements.
Need for this bill: With this bill, the author seeks to ensure
that babies and toddlers in poor families receiving CalWORKs
have the diapers they need, which benefits the children who can
continue to be enrolled in child care, as well as the parents
who can continue to go to work as a result of that child care.
The author introduced a similar measure, AB 1516 (Gonzalez) in
2014. That bill also attempted to provide access to diapers,
but did so through a young child special needs assessment, which
would have been provided to families to purchase diapers for all
children in the family two years of age and younger. The scope
of this bill is narrower, as it provides a diaper products
voucher that is specifically tied to child care enrollment
pursuant to a parent's welfare-to-work plan.
According to the author, "Despite being critical to the health
and hygiene of young children, diapers are excluded from state
and federal assistance for low income families. There is no
mechanism for relief from the high cost of diapers in
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California, even for those families we already support through
programs such as CalWORKs. An inadequate supply of diapers can
jeopardize a parent's employment by limiting their access to
child care. Additionally, diaper need can cause avoidable and
costly health consequences for the child and become an equally
unhealthy stressor on parents. The goals of this legislation
are to remove a potential barrier between parents and child
care, and to alleviate the financial and health risks associated
with diaper need." The author goes on to note that child care
utilization, which helps to facilitate more consistent
employment for parents on CalWORKs, can help increase success of
the program and potentially result in savings in other
safety-net programs.
Staff comments: Although a diaper product voucher may help
guide the use of the benefit, processes for providing numerous
state and federal benefits, have shifted away from vouchers to
electronic means. This is most evident in the use of Electronic
Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards for the distribution of CalFresh
food benefits (formerly provided through food stamps, which were
paper vouchers), as well as the more recent move to provide
Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and
Children (WIC) benefits on EBT cards, which is still in the
process of being implemented in California. In addition to
streamlining the distribution of benefits, the move to
electronic benefits transfer has made benefits more readily
accessible to clients and has simplified purchase transactions
for vendors. Should this bill move forward, the author should
consider provision of the diaper products benefit through the
EBT system to ensure efficient delivery of the benefit and
reduce the possibility of purchase transactions barriers.
Additionally, this bill currently allows the voucher to cover
"diaper products," but does not define the exact products
eligible for purchase with the voucher. Should this bill move
forward, committee staff recommends the author consider better
defining "diaper products" to ensure clarity for clients and
vendors.
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PRIOR LEGISLATION:
AB 1516 (Gonzalez), 2014, would have provided CalWORKs
recipients an $80 per month young child special needs
assessment, for the purpose of purchasing diapers, for every
child age 2 years or younger in the assistance unit. It died on
the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
American Academy of Pediatrics
Black Women for Wellness
California Alternative Payment Program (CAPPA)
California Catholic Conference of Bishops 4
California Immigrant Policy Center
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ)
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California Primary Care Association
Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice, UCB, School of Law
Courage Campaign
Crime Victims Unite of CA (CVUC)
Forward Together
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (JFSLA)
National Center for Youth Law
National Diaper Bank Network
Parent Voices California
Planned Parenthood
Western Center on Law and Poverty
Women Organizing Resources, Knowledge and Services (WORKS)
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Myesha Jackson / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089