BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Jim Beall, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1502
A
AUTHOR: Mullin
B
VERSION: June 2, 2014
HEARING DATE: June 10, 2014
1
FISCAL: Yes
5
0
CONSULTANT: Mareva Brown
2
SUBJECT
CalWORKs: Family Unity Act of 2015
SUMMARY
This bill would simplify CalWORKs eligibility requirements
to require that aid be granted to a family that meets
applicable eligibility requirements, without regard to the
employment status of the parent. This bill also makes
additional changes to the definition of a nonrelative
caretaker.
ABSTRACT
Existing law:
1)Establishes in federal statute 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.)
Continued---
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2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used
to determine eligibility for the program, including net
income below the Maximum Aid Payment (MAP), based on
family size and county of residence, which is
approximately 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)Establishes that a child is deprived of parental support
for the purposes of receiving CalWORKs benefits due to
the unemployment of his or her parent(s) when the parent
has worked less than 100 hours in the preceding four
weeks, and meets specified federal definitions of an
unemployed parent. (WIC 11201)
5)Establishes that a family receiving CalWORKs benefits
with a child who is considered to be deprived of parental
support due to unemployment may continue to receive
assistance regardless of the number of hours his or her
parent works provided the family does not exceed the
applicable gross or net income limits and is otherwise
eligible for assistance. (WIC 11201 (c))
6)Establishes that a family is eligible for CalWORKs
benefits and services if their related children under the
age of 18 years, have been deprived of parental support
or care due to the death, physical or mental incapacity
or incarceration of a parent, the unemployment of one or
both parents or the continued absence of a parent from
the home due to divorce, separation, desertion, or any
other reason, except absence occasioned solely by reason
of the performance of active duty in the uniformed
services of the United States, as defined. (WIC 11250)
7)Defines "continued absence" to exist when the nature of
the absence is such as either to interrupt or to
terminate the parent's functioning as a provider of
maintenance, physical care, or guidance for the child,
and the known or indefinite duration of the absence
precludes counting on the parent's performance of the
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function of planning for the present support or care of
the child. If these conditions exist, the parent may be
absent for any reason, and may have left only recently or
some time previously.
8)Requires every individual, as a condition of eligibility
for CalWORKs aid, to participate in welfare-to-work
activities, as defined, with specified exemptions
including:
a. Individuals under 16 years of age
b. A child attending an elementary, secondary,
vocational, or technical school on a full-time
basis, as defined
c. An individual who is disabled as determined by
a doctor's verification, as specified, or is of
advanced age
d. A nonparent caretaker relative who has primary
responsibility for providing care for a child and is
either caring for a child who is a dependent or
ward of the court or caring for a child in a case in
which a county determines the child is at risk of
placement in foster care, and the county determines
that the caretaking responsibilities are beyond
those considered normal day-to-day parenting
responsibilities such that they impair the caretaker
relative's ability to be regularly employed or to
participate in welfare-to-work activities.
e. An individual whose presence in the home is
required because of illness or incapacity of another
member of the household and whose caretaking
responsibilities impair the recipient's ability to
be regularly employed or to participate in
welfare-to-work activities
f. The parent or caretaker of a child six months
or younger, as defined by county policy (WIC
11320.3.)
9)Requires that in a family eligible for aid due to the
unemployment of the principal wage earner, the
exemption criteria contained be applied to only one
parent. (WIC 11320.3 (b)(6)(B))
10)Requires the payment of assistance to nonparent
caregivers who are caring for a foster child, ward of the
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court, or child at risk of foster care placement, as
defined. (WIC 11401)
This bill:
1) Deletes the following eligibility requirements for
CalWORKs benefits:
a. That either parent be unemployed
b. That a child be deprived of parental
support
c. That a parent work less than 100 hours
per month
2) Replaces those eligibility requirements with the
definition of "parent" to mean a natural or adoptive
parent with whom an eligible child is living.
3) Deletes the eligibility requirement that a child
must be deprived of parental support or care due to
the death, physical or mental incapacity or
incarceration of a parent, the unemployment of one or
both parents or the continued absence of a parent from
the home due to divorce, separation, desertion, or any
other reason, as specified.
4) Replaces that language with the requirement that
aid, services, or both be granted under this chapter,
and subject to the regulations of the department, to
families with related children under 18 years of age,
with exemptions already stated in statute, if the
family meets the eligibility requirements specified in
this chapter, including income and work requirements.
5) Establishes that the absence of a parent, as
defined, is not a condition of eligibility to receive
benefits.
6) Defines absence of a parent to mean the continued
absence of a parent from the home due to divorce,
separation, desertion, or any other reason. A
continued absence exists when the nature of the
absence is such as either to interrupt or to terminate
the parent's functioning as a provider of maintenance,
physical care, or guidance for the child, and the
known or indefinite duration of the absence precludes
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counting on the parent's performance of the function
of planning for the present support or care of the
child. If these conditions exist, the parent may be
absent for any reason, and may have left only recently
or some time previously.
7) Adds to the existing exceptions for welfare-to-work
activities a nonparent caretaker relative who has
primary responsibility for providing care for a child
who is not his or her biological or adoptive child, if
the caretaker relative is not also receiving aid for a
biological or adopted child.
8) Deletes the requirement that a nonparent caretaker
relative who is caring for a foster child, a ward of
the court, or a child determined to be at risk of
foster placement must receive a county determination
that that the caretaking responsibilities are "beyond
those considered normal day-to-day parenting
responsibilities such that they impair the caretaker
relative's ability to be regularly employed or to
participate in welfare-to-work activities."
9) Replaces that language with the requirement that a
nonparent caretaker relative be eligible for an
exception to the welfare-to-work requirement if he or
she is caring for a foster child, a ward of the court
or a child at risk of placement in foster care if the
caretaker relative is receiving aid for a biological
or adoptive child.
10) Makes other technical and clean-up changes to the
statute.
FISCAL IMPACT
This bill was identified as non-fiscal by the Office of
Legislative Counsel when it was in the Assembly and
therefore was not heard in the Appropriations Committee.
Subsequent amendments have resulted in it being identified
as a fiscal bill in the Senate. As such, it has not yet
been analyzed for fiscal impact.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
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Purpose of the bill:
When the federal TANF program was established in 1996,
enacting legislation identified principal goals: To provide
assistance to needy families so that children can be cared
for in their own homes; to reduce the dependency of needy
parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to
prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock
pregnancies; and to encourage the formation and maintenance
of two-parent families.<1>
However, the author states that several provisions of the
CalWORKs statute are outdated and in conflict with the goal
of preserving families. One of those is the deprivation
test, which requires that in addition to proving that a
family has met income and asset tests, the family also must
show an absence of parental support in order to receive
assistance through the program. The deprivation test
prohibits a two-parent family from qualifying for CalWORKs
if the primary wage earner is working over 100 hours a
month regardless of their income. It also requires the
County Human Services Agency to verify parental absence in
order to assist a family with two parents. This bill would
modify eligibility criteria to simply require families meet
income and asset tests, regardless of how many hours they
work or how many parents are in the home.
Additionally, the author states existing CalWORKs
eligibility criteria create a barrier for low-income
nonparent caretakers of foster children or children who are
or at risk of being placed in foster care by requiring them
to participate in welfare-to-work activities in order to
receive CalWORKs benefits for the child. According to the
author, denying financial assistance to very poor relative
caregivers increases the likelihood that the child will end
up in foster care. Many of these relative caregivers would
be eligible for an existing exemption, if they if screened
appropriately, so removing this rule will both simplify the
program and stabilize the family, the author states.
Poverty
According to a report issued in August 2013 by the Public
Policy Institute of California, more than six million
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<1> http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/programs/tanf/about
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Californians were living in households with incomes below
the federal poverty level (about $23,000 for a family of
four). A "Supplemental Poverty Measure," created by the
U.S. Census Bureau and other federal researchers,
incorporated California's high cost of living and the
effect of safety net programs such as food stamps, and
suggested that California's actual poverty rate is the
highest in the nation: 23.5% during 2009-2011. Researchers
noted that prior to the Great Recession, California's
poverty rate had declined to nearly the national average,
but those gains were reversed as California felt the deep
impact of the recession leaving the state with a higher
rate (16.9%) than the rate in the rest of the country
(14.7%).
Meanwhile, a UC Davis study indicated strong correlations
between living in poverty and poor childhood outcomes. The
study, "Poverty during Childhood and Adolescence May
Predict Long-term Health," found that neighborhood
affluence, neighborhood safety, and family resources during
childhood and adolescence accounted for 4.5% of the
differences between their health risk indexes 15 to 20
years later. Specifically, the authors found that lower
affluence was the single strongest predictor of biological
risk for health problems in adulthood.
CalWORKs
The California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids
(CalWORKs) program provides monthly income assistance and
employment-related services intended to move children out
of poverty and help families meet basic needs. Federal
funding for CalWORKs comes from the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. According to recent
data from CDSS, 554,292 families rely on CalWORKs,
including more than 1 million children. The average
monthly CalWORKs cash grant for a family of three is $463,
or $15.43 per day to meet basic needs such as rent,
clothing, utilities and other necessities. A family of
three receiving the average grant amount would have an
annual household income at $5,556 per year -- about one
quarter of the Federal Poverty Guidelines level for the
same size family of $19,790.
While federal law limits cash assistance to a family with
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an adult to 60 months, California law limits eligibility
for the CalWORKs program to 48 months, with a requirement
that families must meet federal work participation
requirements for 24 of those months in order to retain
eligibility and benefits.
Deprivation standard
The state's deprivation standards were originally enacted
to comply with federal Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) rules, which required that two-parent
families take additional steps to prove deprivation in
order to receive aid. The AFDC statute was replaced in 1996
with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, funded with TANF grants to the states.
CalWORKs is California's implementation of this program.
Under the AFDC rules, two-parent households were defined as
unemployed if the primary earner had worked in at least six
of the previous 13 work quarters and had been unemployed
for at least 30 days prior to application for benefits;
both applicants and recipients were restricted to working
no more than 100 hours per month. Many states began
modifying or removing special requirements for two-parent
units and by 2001, just 14 states still had laws in place
with restrictions on two-parent households. As of 2011,
California was one of just four states that retained the
100-hour working limit for two-parent families and one of
10 states with any restriction in place for two-parent
families.
Nonparent caretaker
If a child is placed by a juvenile court, either through
the foster care or probation process, with a relative who
is not a parent, the caregiver is eligible for state and
federal payments to support the child. If the child's
family of origin is poor enough to qualify for federal AFDC
aid, the family receives support payments through that
payment stream. The rates for a caretaker of a child who is
eligible range from $671, for a child aged 4 or younger, to
$838 for a child aged 15 to 20 years old.
However, if the child's family of origin does not qualify
for AFDC, the state pays nonparent caregivers the CalWORKs
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rate for the child. If the relative who has taken the child
has a low enough income to qualify for CalWORKs assistance
now that they have a child in the household, then they are
eligible for the adult portion of the CalWORKs grant -
roughly $122 per month for an individual. Adults who become
eligible for that portion of the grant because they have
taken a foster or probation placement are required to
participate in welfare-to-work activities unless they go
through the process to receive an exemption for age or
other specified reasons. This bill seeks to remove the
requirement for those adults to participate in
welfare-to-work activities.
COMMENTS
The Western Center on Law and Poverty, a co-sponsor of AB
1502, notes that this law prevails during a decade in which
California's CalWORKs benefits were significantly cut, the
lifetime eligibility for welfare-to-work services within
the program went from 60 to 24 months and the economy has
failed to recover quickly leaving many low-income working
parents working a full time job but earning a wage that
still qualifies them for public benefits. Current law
"assumes that a family working more than 100 hours per
month would earn an income above the income threshold.
While it should be the case, it is unfortunately not, as
too many working families are going without their basic
needs met and turning to the public benefit programs to
fill the gaps."
PRIOR VOTES
Assembly Floor 49 - 23
Assembly Human Services 5 - 1
POSITIONS
Support: California Immigrant Policy Center
County Welfare Directors Association of
California
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
National Association of Social Workers
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Western Center on Law & Poverty
Oppose: None received.
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