BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1233
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 13, 1999
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Dion Aroner, Chair
AB 1233 (Aroner) - As Introduced: February 26, 1999
SUBJECT : CalWORKs program
SUMMARY : Modifies the California Work Opportunity and
Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program. Specifically, this
bill :
1)Exempts the value of one automobile from the CalWORKs resource
limit.
2)Eliminates the requirement that a child for whom a parent is
applying for assistance be deprived of parental support due to
death, incapacity, incarceration or unemployment.
3)Provides an exemption from welfare-to-work activities to a
dependent child who is attending a postsecondary school and a
child who graduates from high school as long as he or she
attends any postsecondary education or training program.
4)Revises the definition of disability-based income to include
income from any benefit program that requires a determination
of disability made by the agency administering the benefit
program and conforms other disability definitions to that
definition.
5)Disregards from countable income for the purposes of
determining the CalWORKs grant any amount of child or spousal
support paid pursuant to a court order to a child or spouse
who is not in the home, and up to $175 per month for each
employed recipient for the reasonable and necessary costs of
obtaining care for an incapacitated individual in the
household.
6)Excludes from CalWORKs time limits any month in which an
individual satisfies the hourly work participation requirement
entirely through unsubsidized employment.
7)Modifies the Child Support Assurance Demonstration Project by:
a) Removing the three-county limit on the number of
AB 1233
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demonstration projects and allowing a demonstration project
in any county.
b) Eliminating the requirement that one of the
demonstration projects conform to a specified design.
c) Permitting the Department of Social Services (DSS) to
approve joint demonstration projects by two or more
counties if specified conditions are met.
d) Including within the project evaluation research design
the requirement to consider the impact of the project on
household incomes and family well being.
e) Eliminating the requirement that a family must be
eligible for a CalWORKs grant as a condition of eligibility
for participation in a Child Support Assurance
Demonstration Program.
f) Permitting a custodial parent to participate in a Child
Support Assurance Demonstration Program without having a
child support order, provided the parent has demonstrated
to the county a diligent effort to obtain a child support
order or has been unable to obtain a child support order
through no fault of his or her own.
g) Clarifying that a program participant need not be
employed for a specific number of hours.
h) Requiring, to the extent possible, that no state funds
shall be used to pay for Child Support Assurance
Demonstration Program benefits if the use of the funds
would subject participants to time limits.
EXISTING LAW
1)Establishes the CalWORKs program, which provides cash
assistance and supportive services to qualified low-income
families.
2)Requires that the value of any automobiles a CalWORKs
applicant or recipient owns be counted toward the program
resource limits and be valued pursuant to methods established
under the federal food stamp program.
3)Requires that a child for whom a parent is applying for
CalWORKs assistance be deprived of parental support due to
death, incapacity, incarceration, unemployment or continued
absence of parents.
4)Requires that as a condition of eligibility for CalWORKs
benefits recipients participate in welfare-to-work activities
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and exempts from that requirement a dependent child attending
an elementary, secondary, vocational, or technical school on a
full-time basis.
5)Prevents certain reductions in CalWORKs benefits from being
applied to recipient families when all of the parents or
caretaker relatives of the aided child in the home are
disabled and receiving benefits under specified disability
programs.
6)Requires that specified amounts of earned and disability-based
unearned income be excluded from countable income used in
calculating a CalWORKs grant.
7)Provides that State Disability Insurance benefits, private
disability benefits, Temporary Workers' Compensation benefits
and social security disability benefits are the only
disability-based unearned income subject to exclusion.
8)Limits the receipt of a parent's share of CalWORKs benefits to
18 or 24 months in a lifetime, subject to certain exemptions.
9)Establishes the Child Support Assurance Demonstration Program
in up to three counties to test models of child support
assurance, one of which is specified, and provides funding
from the CalWORKs program.
10)Requires the DSS to develop research designs to ensure
thorough evaluation of the Child Support Assurance
Demonstration projects, including the impact of
welfare-to-work participation rates of custodial parents,
CalWORKs participation rates and costs, paternity and child
support order establishment and other relevant information.
11)Permits only parents who are eligible for CalWORKs benefits
to participate in the Child Support Assurance Demonstration
Program.
12)Allows a family to participate in a child support assurance
program only if the parent has assigned the child's right to
collect child support to the state; obtained a child support
order; opted to participate in the Child Support Assurance
Demonstration Program in lieu of CalWORKs; and cooperated with
all child support enforcement activities, unless compliance
would pose a risk of domestic violence.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)According to the author, this bill is intended to continue the
effort to reform welfare in California by further simplifying
program administration, correcting inadvertent and inequitable
changes and clarifying ambiguous language. She states that
some of the reforms included in this bill were discussed as
part of the welfare reform debate in 1997 but fiscal
limitations, not policy disputes, prevented their
implementation. These changes, she says, will significantly
improve the counties' ability to successfully move recipients
from welfare to work.
2)As part of welfare reform, the Legislature eliminated the
requirement that a recipient of assistance must be "deprived"
of parental support for specified reasons such as death,
disability, absence or unemployment. It was uniformly agreed
that this provision encourages the break-up of families and
posed a barrier to family reunification since it made
two-parent families ineligible for assistance. The
deprivation requirement also significantly complicates the
eligibility process because it requires caseworkers to spend
time making complex eligibility determinations regarding
family status and employment history. This bill continues the
dual purpose of simplifying the program and eliminating the
discrimination against two-parent families by eliminating the
deprivation requirement for applicants as was done for
recipients.
3)As part of welfare reform, the Legislature attempted to
simplify the administrative burden of determining the value of
automobiles owned by CalWORKs applicants and recipients by
conforming the determination process to the one used in the
food stamp program. However, counties still must identify the
value of automobiles. County welfare departments state this
is a costly and time-consuming process that distracts
caseworkers from assisting recipients in finding work. This
bill would exempt from a CalWORKs household the value of one
automobile. In addition to simplifying eligibility, the
exclusion of one automobile will assure that many CalWORKs
recipients will have reliable transportation to assist them in
obtaining employment.
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4)The County Welfare Directors Association, the California
Association of Counties, and advocates for the poor support
eliminating the value of one automobile and the deprivation
requirement as part of the unfinished work in welfare reform.
They each recognize the contribution this makes to simplifying
eligibility, ensuring family stability and promoting work.
5)Prior to welfare reform, a family was entitled to disregard
from any countable income the amount of child or spousal
support paid to a person outside of the household and up to
$175 per month for the reasonable and necessary costs of
obtaining care for an incapacitated individual in the
household. This provision was inadvertently repealed by the
new disregard provision. This bill restores the previous law
and recognizes the importance of honoring child and spousal
support obligations. It also promotes work by assuring
recipients that incapacitated family members will be cared for
while they are working.
6)This bill provides that "disability-based income" is subject
to the income disregard so that Veteran's and other similar
benefits are included in the disregard. It also conforms the
definition of disability used for determining program
exemptions to the same definition.
7)The welfare reform law established a three-county Child
Support Assurance demonstration project to test whether a
guaranteed child support payment instead of welfare benefits
can improve the financial well being of children. Three
counties have been selected to participate in this
demonstration project. This bill eliminates the three-project
limit and allows any county that wants to participate in Child
Support Assurance to do so. It also eliminates the
requirement that one of the projects must conform to a
specified design, thereby allowing the counties to design
their own programs. Other program changes are intended to
further differentiate Child Support Assurance from a welfare
program. As the Children's Advocacy Institute, a cosponsor of
this bill, states, "Child support Assurance is an alternative
to welfare - one which rewards cooperation with child support
enforcement and work, avoiding the stigma of welfare."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
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Support
Children's Advocacy Institute (co-sponsor)
Western Center on Law and Poverty (co-sponsor)
California State Association of Counties
County welfare Directors Association
Housing California
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Curtis Child / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2247