The California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) is the largest anti-poverty program for families with children in the United States.[i] It was created by Governor Pete Wilson and the Legislature in 1997 to implement the new federal block grant, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). CalWORKs has often been hailed as a success. For some, that is reflected in lower caseloads and lower spending on welfare. For others, the success lies in giving tens of thousands of families the education and experience they need to move out of poverty permanently.

But CalWORKs is now at a crossroads. Repeated budget cuts have significantly reduced the welfare to work focus of the program. The state’s increasing reliance on bookkeeping maneuvers to meet federal work participation has drained more than $1 billion from the program annually and the Brown Administration’s proposed $1.1 billion in new CalWORKs budget cuts calls into question their commitment to reducing poverty among poor families. This paper (written before the premature release of the state budget) argues that there are other alternatives that the state may employ that would help reduce caseloads by helping more families get the education, training and experience they need to become self-sufficient.

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