BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2352
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AUTHOR: Hernandez
B
VERSION: February 24, 2012
HEARING DATE: June 12, 2012
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FISCAL: Yes
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CONSULTANT: Mareva Brown
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SUBJECT
CalWORKs eligibility: asset limits: vehicles
SUMMARY
Excludes motor vehicles from consideration as property when
determining eligibility for CalWORKs benefits.
ABSTRACT
Current law
1. Establishes under federal law the Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program to provide
welfare-to-work services to qualifying families. In
California, TANF funds are administered the California
Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs)
program.
2. Restricts eligibility for the program to
participants who have less than certain amounts of
income, savings and real property. Among those asset
limits are:
a. $2,000 in savings and $3,000 for a family
with a member age 60 or above;
Continued---
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b. One residence that the family lives in;
c. One car with a value of $4,650 or less;
and
d. Savings and interests in restricted
federally qualified accounts for the purpose of
saving for college, retirement, starting a
business, purchasing a home, or overcoming an
episode of homelessness
3. Uses asset limit guidelines established by the
federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in
defining some CalWORKs asset limits.
This bill
1. Excludes a motor vehicle from consideration as
property when determining and re-determining
eligibility for applicants and recipients.
2. Deletes the requirement that county welfare
departments assess the value of a vehicle in
determining eligibility for applicants of the CalWORKs
program.
FISCAL IMPACT
According to an Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis,
this bill would achieve ongoing net savings in the CalWORKs
program of $4 million (TANF/MOE) per year, primarily due to
reduced administrative workload. Specifically, the analysis
indicated the bill would increase grant costs by $357,000
(TANF/MOE) for 2012-2013, and then to $4.2 million
(TANF/MOE) in 2014-15 due to an increased CalWORKs
caseload. However, it would save $5 million (TANF/MOE) in
2012-2013, growing to approximately $10 million (TANF/MOE)
in 2014-2015 and beyond, due to reduced administrative
workload.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Purpose of the bill
This bill is a re-introduction of AB 1182 (Hernandez, 2011)
which was vetoed by the Governor because of cost. According
to the author, this bill is necessary to enable low-income
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working families to have a reliable means of transportation
to work. While the vehicle limit was designed to allow
families to retain a reliable car in order to find and
maintain employment, the author states that this asset test
proves to be a hindrance to families whose vehicle value is
slightly above the limit because they face the choice
between disposing of their automobile or foregoing needed
cash assistance.
The author states that less than one-tenth of one percent
of all CalWORKs cases are found to exceed the vehicle limit
and therefore the impact on the general fund due to new
cases would be negligible. Similar asset tests for CalFresh
eligibility and for Medi-Cal have been or will soon be
eliminated. A Senate Appropriations analysis of AB 1182
indicated county welfare workers spend 15 to 30 minutes per
case, on average, determining vehicle value in conjunction
with the asset limit, using, in some cases a hard copy of
the Kelley Blue Book.
Other states' asset limits
In California, the vehicle asset limit was last increased
15 years ago. According to the author, California is
currently tied with Texas and Idaho in having the most
restrictive asset test for vehicles of any state in the
country. Nationally, 12 states exclude all vehicles owned
by the household; 15 exclude at least one vehicle per
household; and 20 have substantially increased the value of
the vehicle exclusion.
Volume of cases
The CalWORKs program provides temporary financial
assistance and job-training and finding services to
low-income families and children. CalWORKs uses a
combination of state funding and federal Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) grants to assist
families as part of the state's welfare-to-work program.
With California's ongoing recession, and the state's
unemployment rate at 11 percent in May 2012, a growing
number of families with children have applied for help
through the CalWORKs program. As of November, almost 1.4
million Californians relied on this assistance.
Eligibility requirements for the program include income,
savings and real property limits. Among them is the
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prohibition on owning a car worth more than $4,650.
According to data compiled by Los Angeles County in 2009,
an average of 11 applicants per month were denied CalWORKs
benefits solely because the value of their vehicle exceeded
asset limits, or roughly 0.16 percent of all denied
applications. The total number of CalWORKs applicants
averaged 13,622 per month, of which approximately half - or
6,830 - were denied for various reasons.
Automobiles and work
A report by the Institute for Transportation Studies at
UCLA, "Measuring the Role of Transportation in Facilitating
Welfare-to-Work Transition: Evidence from three California
Counties," compared transportation access issues in Los
Angeles, Fresno and Alameda counties. Among the findings
was that geographic accessibility to employment was a key
factor and, in some locations, job seekers had 70:1 better
job prospects if they had access to a car for work.
"The data show that most jobs, even distant jobs, are
accessible within a 30-minute commute in a private
vehicle. In contrast, access to employment
opportunities among transit-dependent recipients is
highly variable and is contingent on the neighborhoods
in which welfare recipients live and their proximity
to employment centers." (p.7)
In a 2007 paper, "Job Volatility of Rural, Low-income
Mothers: A Mixed Methods Approach," researchers concluded
that mothers who had access to reliable and consistent
transportation were more likely to avoid continuous or
intermittent unemployment.
"Factors that decreased the odds of being unemployed
were having a car and
higher life satisfaction. ? The quantitative results
showed that when compared to those with stable
employment, the intermittently employed group and the
continuously unemployed group were more likely to
receive transportation assistance. Not having a car
was a marginally significant predictor for the
longitudinal status of unemployment." (Journal of
Family Economic Issues (2008)
Arguments in support
The Western Center on Law and Poverty writes that due to
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2352 (Hernandez) Page
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deep cuts to county welfare departments and to the CalWORKs
grants for recipients, "it is more important than ever to
ensure that the program is designed to quickly and
efficiently achieve the program's central goal of moving
low-income parents from poverty economic self-sufficiency.
Removing the auto-resource barrier offers program
administrators one more strategy to address the shortfall?"
Prior legislation :
AB 1182 (Hernández), 2011, was virtually identical to this
legislation, and was vetoed by the governor. His veto
message said: "In the last year, the state has been forced
to make steep reductions in many programs, including the
state's welfare-to-work program. As we go into the new
year, we may have to make additional cuts. Until we better
understand the fiscal outlook, we should not be making
changes of this kind."
AB 1058 (Beall), 2009-10, would have deleted the
requirement that county welfare departments assess the
value of a vehicle when determining a CalWORKs' application
or recertification. Died in the Senate Appropriations
suspense file.
AB 2368 (Fuentes), 2007-08, would have eliminated the
vehicle asset test for CalWORKs applicants and recipients.
Died in the Senate Appropriations suspense file.
AB 2480 (S. Runner), 2007-2008, would have added leased
vehicles to the list of countable resources. Failed
passage in the Assembly Human Services Committee.
AB 167 (Bass), 2007-08, would have eliminated the CalWORKs
asset test for applicants and recipients. Died in the
Senate Appropriations suspense file.
PRIOR VOTES
Assembly Floor: 48 - 25
Assembly Appropriations:12 - 5
Assembly Human Services: 5 - 0
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POSITIONS
Support: California Catholic Conference, Inc.
California State Association of Counties
California Welfare Directors Association
Children's Defense Fund California
Clinica Medica San Miguel
Coalition of California Welfare Rights
Organizations, Inc.
Congregations Building Community
County Welfare Directors Association
EARN
National Association of Social Workers
Regional Council of Rural Counties
Western Center on Law and Poverty
Ten (10) individuals
Oppose: None received
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