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The settlement of Napper v. Sacramento County ensures that some 5,000 adults with significant psych... Read More..
This week, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) issued new state regulations resul... Read More..
CalWORKs recipients are paying more than $20 Million a year in surcharges to banks in order to ac... Read More..
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New Analysis by WCLP and CBP Shows Administration is Exaggerating When it Claims CalWORKs Grant Costs Are High
The Schwarzenegger Administration is proposing reducing CalWORKs grants by 15.7 percent because it contends the grants are excessive when compared with the ten states with the highest housing costs. It asserts that CalWORKs grants should be the average of those ten states or $585 a month maximum for a family of three.
The Assembly Budget Committee took testimony on the proposed CalWORKs cut at a public hearing this week and two new analysis poked large holes in the assertions by the Administration. New research presented by WCLP shows that more than half the CalWORKs families get far less than the maximum grant and that if the 15.7 percent grant cut goes through many of these families will be living at or below 50% of the federal poverty level.
The WCLP analysis also takes exception with the Department of Social Service's "Benefits Model" that includes child care subsidies and health care benefits when considering the overall resources of CalWORKs family. This misleading approach has been roundly criticized by no less than the National Academy of Sciences for being "flawed," "perverse" and "not appropriate."
The California Budget Project presented a series of charts which showed that over time the CalWORKs grant has steadily lost ground to inflation, has become less able to pay Fair Market Rents (FMR) and that if the Governor's proposal is adopted both of these problems become much worse.
CBP also presented a chart prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that showed that California actually ranks 21st in the country when comparing the value of the TANF grant to FMR. As Scott Graves of CBP noted, the grant covers just 57.9 percent of the FMR in California and our state falls neatly in between well-known welfare havens Nebraska and West Virginia.
The Budget Committee held open the issue of whether to reduce CalWORKs grants or not until after the May Revise but the fact that California will lose $480 million in federal stimulus funds in order to save $120 million appeared to get the attention of the committee members.
The new analysis from WCLP and CBP are attached.