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June 1999 - Vol. 1, No 4

• Supreme Court Rules Lower Benefits for New State Residents Unconstitutional
• Child Support Pass-Through Legislation Reintroduced
• Analyses of Final TANF Regulations Available
• New Publications
• Support Orders for Child Care Proposed in Senate Bill

Supreme Court Rules Lower Benefits for New State Residents Unconstitutional

In a 7-2 decision on May 17, 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that states may not pay lower welfare benefits to new residents than to long-term residents. The decision strikes down California's 'durational residency' requirement, as well as the provision in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), that gave states the authorization to provide these lower benefits. The residency laws were found to violate the constitutional right to travel derived from the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision will have a significant impact, since many states have attempted similar residency requirements in the belief that welfare recipients move from states with relatively low benefits to those with higher benefits in order to maximize their welfare income. Some states also limit benefits to the time limit of the previous state. The decision nullifies this policy as well.

Child Support Pass-Through Legislation Reintroduced

Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) and co-sponsors Dodd (D-CN) and Rockefeller (D-WV) have introduced the Children First Child Support Reform Act of 1999. The bill would give states the option, and provide them with incentives, to pass through all child support collected on behalf of families receiving welfare, rather than to retain the child support as repayment of welfare costs. States choosing the pass through option could disregard the amount of child support received by a family in determining eligibility for assistance, and would have the option of disregarding any portion of the child support in determining the amount of assistance.

As an incentive for states to elect both a pass through and disregard of the child support collected, states that disregard at least 50 percent of the child support collected when determining assistance amounts would be released from paying the Federal share of child support. Passed-through child support could also be claimed for purposes of meeting a state's TANF Maintenance of Effort requirements.

The bill would allow for a range of state options. States could elect to pass child support through to a family, but then count the child support in determining the family's assistance amount. In this case, the family would not receive any additional income, since the passed through child support payments would reduce the assistance grant dollar for dollar. Proponents of the bill included this option in part to give families the benefit of knowing that the father is contributing to the family. A state choosing this option would not qualify for the release from payment of the Federal share of child support.

More significantly, the bill would allow states to pass through the entire amount of child support and disregard the full amount in determining a family's cash assistance grant. In his introduction of the bill, Senator Kohl said that the legislation would, "enhance the options and incentives available to states to allow more child support to be paid directly to the families to whom it is owed and not be counted against public assistance benefits. My legislation will help assure more noncustodial parents that the child support they pay will actually contribute to the well-being of their child, rather than the government, and also help reduce administrative burdens on the state."

The bill has been referred to the Committee on Finance. For more information, or to voice your support for this legislation, contact Eilleen Hatten, Office of Senator Herb Kohl, 202/224-1888.

Analyses of Final TANF Regulations Available

Summaries of the final TANF regulations are now available from several sources: the Center for Law and Social Policy, 202/328-5140, or www.clasp.org; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, http://www.cbpp.org/ or the Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Family Assistance website at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ofa/.

Notable among the final regulations:

• The definition of assistance has been clarified to allow states to use TANF funds for purposes of support services to families without necessitating compliance with all of the TANF regulations. Assistance is defined in the regulations as cash or noncash benefits designed to meet a family's ongoing basic needs, or for support services to nonemployed families.
• Work subsidies, support services such as child care and transportation assistance, earned income tax credits, and short-term benefits, are not considered assistance. They would not, therefore, trigger a time limit or necessitate the assignment (and enforcement) of child support rights.
• Assistance may be provided to noncustodial parents if they are included in an eligible TANF family unit. Non-assistance services (as described above) could be provided without the need to include the noncustodial parent in the family assistance unit. Assistance received by noncustodial parents, if they are not designated as the head of, or spouse of the head of household, would not count against the family's time limit.
• The Family Violence Option (FVO) in the statute permits a State to waive program requirements for a victim of domestic violence if complying with the requirements would make it more difficult for the victim to escape domestic violence or would unfairly penalize the individual. Under the FVO, the State must also develop a system to screen for victims of domestic violence and refer them to appropriate counseling and supportive services.

New Publications

Obligating Dads: Helping Low-Income Noncustodial Fathers Do More for Their Children, written by Elaine Sorensen, has recently been published by the Urban Institute. The article notes that the annual income of low-income noncustodial fathers in 1990, expressed in 1998 dollars, was $8,956. Although 90 percent of these fathers worked or looked for work in 1990, only 18 percent of them worked full-time and year-round. Child support policies, such as the setting of default and retroactive child support orders, the regressive nature of child support guidelines, as well as the fact that much of the child support paid does not benefit the noncustodial parent's children, and the disproportionate consequences of these policies on low-income fathers are discussed. The author outlines several possible opportunities for enabling noncustodial parents to remain involved with their children and financially capable of supporting them, and recommends new initiatives that would benefit low-income fathers and their families.

Losing Health Insurance: The Unintended Consequences of Welfare Reform, published by The Families USA Foundation (May 1999), is the first study to show a direct link between the loss of welfare benefits and the loss of health insurance coverage. Using data from the Census Bureau and the Health Care Financing Administration, the authors found that:

• In 1997, an estimated 675,000 low-income people became uninsured as a result of welfare reform. Sixty-two percent of those who became uninsured were under the age of 19.
• More than half of the children who lost Medicaid between 1995 and 1997 as a result of welfare reform were in fact eligible under federal requirements, and should not have lost their coverage.
• State efforts to deter people from applying for welfare often result in people being denied the opportunity to apply for Medicaid. As of August 1998, 31 states had implemented some form of "diversion" in the application process for cash welfare assistance.
• Because 1997 was the first year of welfare reform, it is expected that the number of people who become uninsured will continue to grow.

The report can be ordered from the Families USA Foundation, 1334 G St. NW, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC, 202/628-3030, or by visiting their website at http://www.familiesusa.org/

The Children's Defense Fund has published A Parent's Guide to Child Support, designed to inform custodial parents about the process of obtaining child support. The handbook is easily understood by those not familiar with the complicated child support system. Copies of the handbook can be downloaded at http://www.childrensdefense.org/

The Family Violence Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is publishing a volume (expected publication, Summer 1999) entitled, Effective Interventions in Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice. The volume represents an effort to develop recommendations that will support collaboration among child protective services, domestic violence service providers and the judicial system in handling cases of domestic violence and child maltreatment. The volume can be ordered by contacting the Council at the following address: The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Family Violence Department, P.O. Box 8970, Reno, NV 89507. They can be reached by phone at the Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody, 800/527-3223.

Support Orders for Child Care Proposed in Senate Bill

The Caring for America's Children Act (S.810), sponsored by Senator James Jeffords (R-VT) has been introduced in the Senate. The major emphasis of the bill is on increased quality, supply, safety and affordability of child care. The bill would also establish procedures by which any enforced child support order "would include an equitable division between the custodial and noncustodial parents of any costs of providing child care services in any case where the custodial parent is employed or is actively seeking employment." The bill, co-sponsored by Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Dodd (D-CT) and Landrieu (D-LA), has been referred to the Committee on Finance.