The California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program is the California welfare implementation of the federal welfare-to-work Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that provides cash aid and services to eligible needy California families.
CalWORKs provides cash aid to parents, as well as a variety of services intended to help them find and prepare for employment. The most current requirements, and application instructions, can be found on the CDSS CalWORKs website; the main requirements are: [1]
To receive benefits, parents must fulfill requirements such as working 30 hours per week and/or applying for a specified number of jobs per week and/or participating in training and readiness programs. This makes CalWORKs a form of workfare. [2] There is also a lifetime cap of 48 months of benefits received, with some benefits restricted to 24 months. Only 50% of CalWORKs recipients are still enrolled one year after they first entered the program, and only 33% remain past two years. Two years after they first enrolled, the average recipient has used only 9 months of benefits. [3]
While the long-term effects of CalWORKs on California as a whole are complex and multi-faceted, some immediate effects on those receiving aid are easier to quantify. The resources available to each Californian (i.e. their income, accounting for taxes and benefits such as medical care) can be compared to an estimate of the resources required to meet their basic needs (a poverty threshold varying based on factors such as family size and local cost-of-living) to label them as “in” or “out” of poverty, and thus determine a poverty rate for the state. Several such measures are calculated, including the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) and the Public Policy Institute of California’s California Poverty Measure (CPM). The current CPM poverty rate in is 20%, but it is estimated it would be 21% without CalWORKs benefits. That 1 percentage point reduction corresponds to about 380,000 Californians kept "out" of poverty by the program. Of all welfare programs in the state, only CalFresh and earned income tax credits (the federal EITC and the new CalEITC) are responsible for larger reductions (2 percentage points each). [4]
This is a larger reduction than the nation-wide average for TANF programs, [5] but by other metrics CalWORKs performs on-par with other states. As far as can be determined from Census (CPS) data, CalWORKs achieves similar effects for low-income families as programs in comparable states. Specifically, no significant differences were found in poverty rates, unemployment rates, TANF (CalWORKs) enrollment rates, or education/training enrollment rates when comparing likely CalWORKs-eligible families. [3]
Looking beyond this binary in-or-out of poverty type of effect, CalWORKs' welfare-to-work nature is important for understanding how it affects Californians participating in it. Conditioning the provision of welfare benefits on work requirements increases the burdens on families trying not to 'fall through the cracks' between safety net programs. Even without work requirements, families face application processes for the various separate welfare programs in California that require considerable time, effort, and diligence—and often yield one or more rejections. Work requirements are an additional burden in that process as well as barrier rejecting more families from receiving CalWORKs aid, whether intentionally (e.g. for a parent who is choosing not to work) or unintentionally (e.g. for a parent that is unable to meet the requirements). Workfare policies also add burdens to those who do receive aid, which again are unintentional in some cases, such as parents left unemployed by a contraction in the labor market being required to apply for weekly quotas of (scarcely available) jobs or attend job-readiness classes. These differences between welfare programs without work requirements and workfare programs like CalWORKs that are inter-connected with the labor market make workfare programs less able to aid parents that are already doing as much as they can to secure jobs that would provide sufficient income. This creates what Eva Bertram describes as "a three-sided trap, defined by a lack of assistance for the nonworking poor, inadequate support for those in low-wage jobs, and few exits from the low-wage sector to middle-class jobs." [2] Other researchers have identified as a cause for concern the decreased time CalWORKs participants are able to spend parenting their children due to increased time working in the formal sector instead. [6]
Despite these hardships associated with welfare-to-work programs, CalWORKs is generally viewed favorably by participants. In particular, the job search components are viewed as helpful in obtaining a job for unemployed participants. Indeed, 91% of those leaving the program in 2001 were currently employed, and 97% had been employed at some point while enrolled. The majority of those staying in the program or returning after a brief period not enrolled had been employed while in the program as well. While CalWORKs seems to be effective at getting participants some employment, the quality of that employment is a bigger challenge. The large number of participants who are employed and receiving benefits at the same time illustrate that neither CalWORKs' benefits nor their wages are alone sufficient to meet their family's needs. Indeed, most of those with jobs have extremely low wages (well below their poverty thresholds on average) and little opportunity for advancement. Participants identified a lack of support from CalWORKs for improving inadequate employment or for maintaining employment once hired. In short, unemployed parents in search of jobs are often able to gain employment through CalWORKs, but that does not translate directly to earning sufficient income to meet their family's needs. [6]
It is managed by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), but is operated and administered locally by the 58 counties of California.
In Los Angeles County, the county Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) administers CalWORKs. It has a caseload larger than any other jurisdiction except the States of California and New York and an annual budget of over $3 billion.
Federally recognized native tribes are also eligible to receive federal TANF funding to administer TANF programs ("Tribal TANF"). The State of California also provides funding to supplement the TANF grants received by tribes located within the State. This is allotted based on the number of families receiving benefits from each Tribal TANF program. For Federally recognized tribes that do not implement TANF programs, county CalWORKs administrators are required to make CalWORKs benefits available. Members of unrecognized tribes are treated by the counties as residents, and so can receive CalWORKs as well. [7]
CalWORKs was created by the Welfare-to-Work Act of 1997. [8] It replaced the former Greater Avenues to Independence (GAIN) program, the California implementation of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. At the Federal level, AFDC was replaced with TANF in 1996, bringing work requirements that were stricter than those of the AFDC program, and a new cap on individuals' lifetime benefits. [9] While these requirements for participants were stricter, TANF did give more freedom to states to design their implementations of the program than they had with the AFDC. [10] The California Legislature initially created CalWORKs to be more generous than many other states' TANF implementations, but has since reformed it to be generally more austere. The lifetime benefit cap, for example, was initially set at 60 months but was reduced in 2011 to 48 months, and split in 2012 so that partial restrictions applied after 24 months. [9]
Although states have broad freedom in the design and implementation of their TANF programs, they must meet certain requirements to receive Federal funds. This puts the generosity or austerity of CalWORKs to some degree under the control of Federal legislation, and it has lately been growing more austere, as described above.
The effects of such reductions in benefits are of course varied and complex. California conducted a controlled experiment of a 15% reduction in maximum benefits (as well as other reductions) of the AFDC program beginning in 1991 that illustrates some of these impacts. After 7 years, the employment rates and average wages were somewhat higher for AFDC recipients who had been placed in the reduced-benefit program than in the control group. This could be explained by participants having a greater need for employment income when their benefits are smaller. The average disposable incomes (including wages and benefits) for the reduced-benefit group stayed approximately equal to that of the control group, however, as increases in wages made up for decreases in benefits. This disposable income (for both groups) remained well below the poverty line. [10]
A key way the Federal government exerts its influence is by threatening a reduction in funding unless at least 50% of families receiving monthly payments meet work or job training requirements. Specifically, to be counted toward this Work Participation Rate (WPR), parents must perform 30 hours per week (20 for single parents with a child under 6) of work, or work-related activities such as job training, job search assistance, or community service. In 2017, California had a WPR of 61%, thanks mainly to the 52% of recipients of federal money who had un-subsidized employment. [11]
The State has responded to accountability to Federal work participation requirements in several ways. Governor Jerry Brown proposed reforms—enacted in 2012—to require recipients to be engaged in Federally-approved work activities after the first 24 months of aid (during which time a more flexible set of work activities is available). This change was also intended to decrease the time recipients spend in the program, hence cutting costs at the same time as guarding against a reduction in Federal funding. The State also extends this accountability to the counties through a policy of decreasing funding to counties that don't meet the Federal rate in the event that the State as a whole receives a penalty. The State further requires CalWORKs recipients, along with their caseworker, to construct plans for beginning work-activities as soon as possible. [12] [9]
Welfare is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs, which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs, which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment or unemployment compensation, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
Welfare reforms are changes in the operation of a given welfare system, with the goals of reducing the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, keeping the welfare systems affordable, and assisting recipients to become self-sufficient. Classical liberals and conservatives generally argue that welfare and other tax-funded services reduce incentives to work, exacerbate the free-rider problem, and intensify poverty. On the other hand, socialists generally criticize welfare reform because it usually minimizes the public safety net and strengthens the capitalist economic system. Welfare reform is constantly debated because of the varying opinions on the government's determined balance of providing guaranteed welfare benefits and promoting self-sufficiency.
The New Deal was a workfare programme introduced in the United Kingdom by the first New Labour government in 1998, initially funded by a one-off £5 billion windfall tax on privatised utility companies. The stated purpose was to reduce unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work to the unemployed. Spending on the New Deal was £1.3 billion in 2001.
In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly yet still commonly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people. It is a federal aid program, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture under the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), though benefits are distributed by specific departments of U.S. states.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was a federal assistance program in effect from 1935 to 1997 created by the Social Security Act (SSA) and administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provided financial assistance to children whose families had low or no income.
The economic policies of Bill Clinton, referred to by some as Clintonomics, encapsulates the economic policies of United States President Bill Clinton that were implemented during his presidency, which lasted from January 1993 to January 2001.
Workfare is an alternative, and controversial, way of providing money to otherwise unemployed or underemployed people, who are applying for social benefits. The term was first introduced by civil rights leader James Charles Evers in 1968; however, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in a televised speech August 1969. An early model of workfare had been pioneered in 1961 by Joseph Mitchell in Newburgh, New York.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is a federal assistance program of the United States. It began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families through the United States Department of Health and Human Services. TANF is often simply referred to as welfare.
CalWIN is an online, real-time computer program that supports the administration of welfare in California. These include CalWORKs (TANF), CalFresh, Medi-Cal (Medicaid), General Assistance/General Relief, Foster Care, and case management functions for employment services. It facilitates accounting and management reports, interfaces with the California state government, and satisfies the US federal mandate for the Statewide Automated Welfare System (SAWS).
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The bill implemented major changes to U.S. social welfare policy, replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
Social programs in the United States are welfare programs designed to ensure that the basic needs of the American population are met. Federal and state welfare programs include cash assistance, healthcare and medical provisions, food assistance, housing subsidies, energy and utilities subsidies, education and childcare assistance, and subsidies and assistance for other basic services. Similar social welfare benefits are sometimes provided by the private sector either through policy mandates or on a voluntary basis. Employer-sponsored health insurance is an example of this.
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Welfare culture refers to the behavioral consequences of providing poverty relief to low-income individuals. Welfare is considered a type of social protection, which may come in the form of remittances, such as 'welfare checks', or subsidized services, such as free/reduced healthcare, affordable housing, and more. Pierson (2006) has acknowledged that, like poverty, welfare creates behavioral ramifications, and that studies differ regarding whether welfare empowers individuals or breeds dependence on government aid. Pierson also acknowledges that the evidence of the behavioral effects of welfare varies across countries, because different countries implement different systems of welfare.
Welfare dependency is the state in which a person or household is reliant on government welfare benefits for their income for a prolonged period of time, and without which they would not be able to meet the expenses of daily living. The United States Department of Health and Human Services defines welfare dependency as the proportion of all individuals in families which receive more than 50 percent of their total annual income from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Typically viewed as a social problem, it has been the subject of major welfare reform efforts since the mid-20th century, primarily focused on trying to make recipients self-sufficient through paid work. While the term "welfare dependency" can be used pejoratively, for the purposes of this article it shall be used to indicate a particular situation of persistent poverty.
The term juvenilization of poverty is one used to describe the processes by which children are at a higher risk for being poor, suffer consistent and long-term negative effects due to deprivation, and are disproportionately affected by systemic issues that perpetuate poverty. The term connotes not just the mere existence of child poverty but the increase in both relative and absolute measures of poverty among children as compared to both other vulnerable groups and the population at large.
Welfare in California consists of federal welfare programs—which are often at least partially administered by state and county agencies—and several independent programs, which are usually administered by the counties.
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (AACWA) was enacted by the US Government on June 17, 1980. Its purpose is to establish a program of adoption assistance; strengthen the program of foster care assistance for needy and dependent children; and improve the child welfare, social services, and aid to families with dependent children programs. This act amended titles IV-B and XX of the Social Security Act.
The Rhode Island Works Program provide financial and employment services for needy families in order to give children a healthy growth.The program was intended to provide families of low income the necessary aids such as food, shelter, clothing, child care, and medical care as well as assisting parents in finding employment. Applicants for the program are eligible if they are living in the state of Rhode of Island and also if they meet the Department of Human Services eligibility requirements that are set forth.
The Family Assistance Program (FAP) was a welfare program introduced by President Richard Nixon in August 1969, which aimed to implement a negative income tax for households with working parents. The FAP was influenced by President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty program that aimed to expand welfare across all American citizens, especially for working-class Americans. Nixon intended for the FAP to replace existing welfare programs such as the Aid to Assist Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program as a way to attract conservative voters that were beginning to become wary of welfare while maintaining middle-class constituencies. The FAP specifically provided aid assistance to working-class Americans, dividing benefits based on age, the number of children, family income, and eligibility. Initially, the Nixon administration thought the FAP legislation would easily pass through the House of Representatives and the more liberal Senate, as both chambers were controlled by the Democratic Party. In June 1971, the FAP under the bill H.R. 1 during the 92nd Congress, passed in the House of Representatives. However, from December 1971 to June 1972 H.R.1 bill that included the FAP underwent scrutiny in the Senate chamber, particularly by the Senate Finance Committee controlled by the conservative Democrats, while the Republicans were also reluctant on passing the program. Eventually, on October 5 of 1972, a revised version of H.R.1 passed the Senate with a vote of 68-5 that only authorized funding for FAP testing before its implementation. During House-Senate reconciliation, before Nixon signed the bill on October 15, 1972 the entire provision on FAP was dropped. The FAP enjoyed broad support from Americans across different regions. Reception towards the program varied across racial, regional, income, and gender differences. The FAP is best remembered for beginning the rhetoric against the expansion of welfare that was popular during the New Deal. It initiated the support for anti-welfare conservative movements that became mainstream in American political discourse during the Reagan era.
