May 2002 - Vol. 1, No 3

• Implications of Proposed Federal Welfare Reauthorization Assessed for California Advocates Respond
• California Voters Want Poverty Reduction and More Flexible Time Limits
• Reports Issued on Economic Wellbeing of Women and Children Post-Welfare Reform
• Los Angeles Caseworkers Interviewed
• Community College Increases Earnings for Welfare Recipients
• Report Finds High Incidence of Domestic Violence, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Among CA Welfare Recipients
• Impact of Welfare Reform on California Immigrants Assessed
• Advocates Seek Improvement in State's Food Stamp Program

Implications of Proposed Federal Welfare Reauthorization Assessed for California Advocates Respond

As the 1996 federal legislation that restructured welfare for families expires this year, federal TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) law must be reauthorized by Congress by September 2002. On May 16th, the House of Representatives passed their version of legislation, submitted by Representative Wally Herger (R-CA) and based upon President Bush's welfare proposal, and the Senate is expected to pass reauthorization legislation in June. The House bill that recently passed is a strong indication of the final federal legislation that states will be required to implement. (Please see this month's National Policy Briefing from CFFPP for more information on federal activity).

The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) and the California Budget Project (CBP) have released reports on possible effects of the federal House legislation on California:

• The LAO, a non-partisan state agency, has determined that the House bill would cost the State of California an additional $2.8 billion in welfare costs due to more stringent work requirements for the state. Seventy percent of the state's caseload (or essentially all able-bodied adults receiving aid) will be required to be working forty hours a week by 2007, double the current percentage of the caseload working thirty or more hours a week (twenty hours for mothers of young children). In addition, the LAO predicts greatly increased childcare costs due to the work requirements. Though the federal legislation provides a total nationwide increase of one billion dollars in childcare funding, the LAO predicts that the increase in childcare costs would be $1.7 billion for California alone.
• Beyond increased costs and stricter program requirements, the California Budget Project (CBP) has expressed concerns that the federal legislation will reduce state and county flexibility in a number of areas that may prove harmful to families in California, particularly in county efforts to craft individualized education and training programs. The CBP feels that the new requirements may undermine programs designed to meet local needs by forcing workers into jobs that cannot provide the forty hours required or do not pay adequately.

For more details, please see the LAO report, "President's Welfare Reform Reauthorization Plan - Fiscal Effect on California" at www.lao.ca.gov/default.asp and CBP's "Proposed TANF Requirements Do Not Work for California" and more recent updates at their website at www.cbp.org.

It is predicted that the new federal rules may place an especially large financial burden on the state and its residents during a time when California is facing its own large-scale budget deficit. (See CFFPP's January 2002 California Policy Briefing). For updates on Governor Davis' 'May Revise' budget (where the original estimated state deficit has now doubled to $23.6 billion), please visit the LAO and CBP websites. With an additional deficit of several hundred million dollars in CalWORKS funds, it is predicted that savings may be forced from families in the form of reduced services and benefits (possibly up to 24% in reduced grant amounts).

California Voters Want Poverty Reduction and More Flexible Time Limits

A recent survey finds that two-thirds of California voters believe that the primary goal of welfare should be poverty reduction rather than caseload reduction. Almost half do not approve of the five-year lifetime limit on benefits instituted under the 1996 law, and 77% support time limit flexibility for those working but on wages too low to support their families. Over two-thirds also support time-limit flexibility for those with specific employment challenges of mental health or substance abuse, or local job scarcity. The full survey can be read at www.cbp.org.

Reports Issued on Economic Wellbeing of Women and Children Post-Welfare Reform

• Researchers from four major universities, including University of California-Berkeley, have released a report on the situations of TANF recipients and their children, including 700 families in San Jose and San Francisco. Of particular relevance to the reauthorization discussion, the study found that two-thirds of working mothers in California continued to rely upon welfare for wage supplements and health-care, and that the average job with pay of $9.20 per hour for mostly part-time work offered little job security or chance for promotion. The researchers found that the overall material and emotional wellbeing of the women and children surveyed had not improved since welfare reform and that mother-child interaction actually significantly decreased following the 1996 changes. The study noted that one-third of mothers had been forced to quit a job in the previous year due to lack of reliable childcare, and an equal amount had been unable to take a new job during that time due to the same problem.
• A coalition of California advocacy groups, including the California Budget Project, the California Women's Law Center, and the State of California Commission on the Status of Women, has joined with the Women's Foundation of San Francisco to review the most recent findings on women's economic security in, "Failing to Make Ends Meet: A Report on the Economic Status of Women in California." To reduce the high rate of poverty among single women in the state (37%), particularly among women of color (with 40% of Latinas experiencing high food insecurity, 30% of Native American women, and 25% of African American women), the collaborative makes the following recommendations, among others listed in the full report:
  • Support self-sufficient hourly wages, calculated at $16.38 in all major CA metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles and San Francisco (in contrast to the minimum wage of $6.75).
  • Support education and training of welfare recipients, particularly vocational training in higher paying non-traditional employment and post-secondary education.
  • Add more housing for low-income families in California, as two-thirds of low-income families in the state spend 70% of their income on housing.

The reports cited above can be found at http://pace.berkeley.edu/gup_tech_rpt.pdf and http://www.twfusa.org/report02.pdf.

In addition, please visit www.lacehh.org/PDF_files/CWJC_Platform.pdf for the welfare reauthorization platform of advocates in the California Welfare Justice Coalition.

Los Angeles Caseworkers Interviewed

MDRC has released a study detailing interviews with welfare caseworkers in four U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, to document the implementation of state changes due to federal welfare reform. The L.A. GAIN program carries special national significance as it served as a model for the federal work-first program instituted in the 1996 welfare reform law. Though L.A.'s caseload declined 26% between 1996 and 2000, interviews with caseworkers reveal that:

• Caseworkers felt that their work was too rules driven, rather than dependent on the individual client situation. They felt that the initial assessment meant little since most clients were automatically sent into job search. In addition, 86% of sanctions were decided by automated rules rather than caseworker judgement (11,000 recipients or 11% of the caseload is sanctioned on average a month).
• Only 1812 recipients, or 1% of the caseload, were identified as confronting domestic violence, AODA, or mental health barriers. Caseworkers were in general not comfortable with the procedure in interviewing applicants on these personal issues at their first visit and often sped through the eight-question "yes-no" questionnaire.
• The division of benefit distribution and job services between CalWORKS and GAIN offices could be problematic as clients had to travel between offices, often seeing a number of different workers for each aspect of their case. In addition, there was sometimes a communication lag between the offices that could mistakenly cause a client to be sanctioned.

For the full report, please visit www.mdrc.org/Reports2002/UC_ReadyingWelfare/UC-FullReport.pdf.

Community College Increases Earnings for Welfare Recipients

A new report highlights the success of post-secondary educational programs for women on welfare. In 2000, 28% of California's caseload attended at least one community college class. Women were more likely after finishing their programs to:

• Increase their earnings by 42% within one year and 88% within three years. Those who completed an Associates Degree had the highest increase in earnings at 85% within the first year and 176% within three years, with the greatest gains among students with vocational degrees.
• Earn greater job security. Within three years, welfare recipients caught up with their community college peers in employment rates.

The study noted that it takes the average community college student three and half years to complete an Associates Degree due to the combination of work and study. Though counties currently have the flexibility to place recipients in educational programs for twelve months, the proposed federal welfare legislation will prohibit full-time education beyond four months in a three-year period, or require participants to complete their education on their time outside of the 26 hours of required work activities. The report is available from the Center for Law and Social Policy at www.clasp.org.

California Assemblymember Fred Keeley has introduced legislation, AB 2386, that would expand the amount of education and training time available to CalWORKS participants by up to eighteen additional months (the state currently allows 18 to 24 months). Please visit the website of the Western Center on Law and Poverty for more details at www.wclp.org.

Report Finds High Incidence of Domestic Violence, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Among CA Welfare Recipients

The CalWORKS Project, a collaborative research effort between the California Institute for Mental health, Children and Family Futures, and the Family Violence Prevention Fund has issued a recent series of reports documenting domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and mental health barriers for women on welfare, an issue particularly relevant as the federal government considers increasing work requirements. Their most recent report, "Mental Health, Domestic Violence, and Substance Abuse: Need for and Use of Services Among Adult Female TANF Participants" finds the following:

• Half of the women interviewed reported domestic violence, with one-third of interviewees reporting a "serious" domestic violence problem (including physical injury, stalking, threats to life, and threats to children).
• One in four women reported having a problem with alcohol or drug abuse and over one in five reported a serious mental health problem.
• Over one quarter of the women had an unidentified need for services in one or more of the areas of domestic violence, alcohol or drugs, or mental health.
• Welfare offices were unlikely to identify or provide assistance with these barriers. Most women receiving services were self-referred.

For the complete series of studies, please visit www.cimh.org.

Impact of Welfare Reform on California Immigrants Assessed

• Limited access to CalWORKS job programs, childcare and transportation support services due to language barriers and misinformation. Only one of 39 participants had received job training services. Only two of 39 had reported getting ESL classes and many relied upon their children as interpreters within the welfare system.
• Extremely low-wage and unstable jobs in seasonal, temporary, or part-time work and factories, making compliance with work requirements difficult. Many women worked in garment industries, farm labor, or restaurants where they were subject to a higher incidence of disregard of labor laws.
• Mental and physical health. Over half identified each (including post-traumatic stress disorders due to events in their home countries).
• Age. Over 72% were over the age of forty and faced job discrimination.
  The full report can be found at www.apalc.org/api_welfare_focus_group_study.pdf.
• A separate report analyzed national data on immigrant use of welfare services and concluded that only 50% of eligible immigrants in California are utilizing services available to them. Additionally, state participation has declined steeply since the 1996 federal restrictions on immigrant benefits (from 31% receiving PRWORA in 1994 to 23% in 1998) despite the state's extension of food stamps and cash aid to legal immigrants.
  The full report is available from the Center on Immigration Studies at www.cis.org.
• Immigrant-friendly welfare reauthorization platforms are available from the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) at www.nclr.org and www.maldef.org.
• In addition, the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative has recently released a number of information sheets that may better explain which benefits (including food stamps and educational access) are available to immigrants and the benefits for the receipt of which they may be penalized as a public charge. These materials may be found at their website at www.nilc.org/ciwc/index.htm.

Advocates Seek Improvement in State's Food Stamp Program

With less than half of eligible Californians utilizing food stamps, advocates are promoting changes to the state food stamp program that will improve accessibility for the over 1.8 million eligible residents not participating, and relieve pressure on food banks and other private charities attempting to fill the gap in food need across the state. Such discussions are given particular attention in light of the May 2002 reauthorization of the federal food stamp program (please see CFFPP's May 2002 National Policy Briefing for specifics).

Out of eight areas of possible food stamp accessibility improvements, the state of California has improved in only one, earning an overall 'D' grade in a recent report comparing California to the other forty-nine states.

California earned an 'F' for being one of less than ten states nationwide:

• NOT Cutting Red Tape - Assemblymember Fred Keeley has introduced the Red Tape Reduction Act for Hungry, Working Californians, AB 2415, that would reduce recipient reporting requirements from monthly to quarterly; link eligibility between CalWORKS, food stamps and Medi-Cal; and provide transitional benefits for welfare leavers.
• NOT Updating Rules for Cars which prohibit owning vehicles worth more than $4650.
• NOT Using Debit Cards instead of Paper Coupons (federal law requires by Fall '02).
• NOT Ending Finger-imaging, a costly procedure that may be particularly intimidating to immigrants.

The state was graded a 'D' for being one of fourteen states:

• NOT Helping Single Adults in High Unemployment Areas - 37 counties (including L.A.) are eligible to exempt their caseload from work requirements but only 8 do so.

The state was also given low marks for:

• NOT Helping People in Drug Treatment - Assemblymember Carl Washington has introduced AB 1947 that would prohibit the lifetime exclusion of post-release nonviolent drug felons from receiving food stamps or CalWORKS.
• NOT Doing Outreach to People in Need.

The only improvement in accessibility the state had made was in Helping Legal Immigrants, however the report urges that the program further increase access by alleviating both fears of public charge and additional reporting requirements.

Please see the full report card from the California Hunger Action Coalition (a coalition of 16 state advocacy organizations) at www.cfpa.net/chac.

The following two web sites were also consulted for legislative information, and are especially recommended as resources for practitioners and advocates, with extensive and up-to-date coverage of food security issues in California, including coverage of legislation, educational materials, research, and state advocacy. Please visit the California Food Policy Advocates www.cfpa.net and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness and Hunger at www.lacehh.org, for complete coverage of food stamps in California.