CalWORKs Policy and Program

Introduction and Nature of Problem

This analysis will focus on the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) welfare program. This program is available to California families who have children facing specific circumstances such as an absent parent or unemployment of the principal earner (California Department of Social Services, 2020). This program, established in 1998, was designed to provide impoverished families short-term help through cash assistance. Using federal funding in the form of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants, California developed CalWORKs. The program requires eligible parents to work towards finding and maintaining employment (Danielson & Thorman, 2018, para. 1). However, children are eligible to receive assistance regardless of their parent’s program statues. In 2018, 81.4% of recipients were children. This program was developed in the wake of widespread welfare reform in the 1990s and the passing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996.

Various forms of social aid have deep roots in society, dating back to as far as 1935 to assist in sustaining American families affected by poverty who lacked the resources to sustain and thrive within the country. The nature of social work is to provide assistance to people who are in need of it. This can take many forms, one of which is in the nature of welfare and monetary aid. Programs such as the ones discussed here are essential in allowing the most vulnerable populations the ability to not just exist, but to thrive. In providing these populations aid through assistance with locating a job and appropriate training, or with monetary support and access to food for their families, individuals are given the confidence they need to thrive and evolve within society.

However, welfare and aid programs are not without their controversies. Critics say that by allowing people access to these programs, they are allowing them to slack off and to rely solely on the system. Others may claim that welfare beneficiaries are abusing the system to avoid finding work. Of course, there is a perpetual argument that welfare recipients need to be drug tested in order to receive their benefits. The majority of these claims are unfounded and accusatory in nature. There are several levels of cross-checking employed to prevent fraudulent welfare claims and misuse of benefits. As the United States evolves, public aid is sure to evolve with it. This evolution has occurred in the past and will continue to follow suit. In the future, the amount of aid received will likely depend on the individual’s need, much as it does now.

Before 1996, families in poverty received packages of welfare services, which included cash assistance, food stamps, and health insurance in the form of Medicaid. This system began in 1935 with the passing of the Social Security Act. At this time, these benefits were named Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) and supported states who had passed mother’s aid laws (Gordon & Batlan, 2011, para. 1). At the time, the Social Security Act had an inherent masculine bias, and the original bill “was aimed at male breadwinners” (Gordon & Batlan, 2011, para. 2). Thus, the U.S Children’s Bureau lobbied for aid to help children whose parents (primarily mothers) did not have a primary breadwinner. Over time, the program developed into the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). However, by the 1960s, the American public had become critical of these entitlement programs. In the book Evaluation of the SB 1041 Reforms to California’s CalWORKs Program, Karoly et al. (2015) explain that support for the AFDC “began to wane in the 1960s as the caseloads started to climb and the composition shifted toward female-headed households resulting from out-of-wedlock childbearing or divorce” (p. 5). Additionally, there had been evidence that showed that many households receiving AFDC were enrolled in the program for five years or more. Therefore, concerns were raised about “a culture of long-term dependency and about the transmission of dependency from one generation to the next” (Karoly et al., 2015, p. 5). As a result, reforms occurred in 1967 and 1988. In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration replaced ADFC with an updated and revised policy.

The AFDC had slowly lost increasing amounts of public support, and in general, the American public was becoming critical of welfare. In the Brookings Institute policy brief “Welfare Reform and the Work Support System,” Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins (2002) explain that “the American public came to believe that this system of entitlement benefits contributed to a decline in work by poor parents and an even more striking decline in the number of poor children being reared in two-parent families” (p. 1). As time passed, the public increasingly believed that these programs resulted in perpetual dependency on the welfare system (Schaefer, 2017, para. 1). Furthermore, the programs were expensive to administer. Due in part to the growing public opposition to these programs, in 1992, Bill Clinton focused on welfare reform as part of his campaign for President of the United States. Four years after campaigning on welfare reform, during Clinton’s administration, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) was passed. PRWORA ultimately replaced AFDC with TANF. Unlike previous federal welfare programs, PRWORA emphasized work and gave increased power to states to design how to use the block grant money made available to them. In California, the Thompson-Maddy-Duchney-Ashburn Welfare-to-Work Act brought California into compliance with PRWORA and allowed the state to receive TANF block grants. Simply put, the CalWORKs program was created in response to this federal policy change, and it is funded by 65% of the federal TANF funding and state and county funding. By incentivizing work, the program aims to reduce reliance on welfare while at the same time protecting children from extreme poverty.

CalWORKs

Before the federal efforts to reform welfare, in California, there were increasing numbers of children and adults receiving cash assistance. With as many as 2.7 million people receiving cash assistance, the CalWORKs program aimed to reduce caseloads through emphasizing work (Danielson & Thorman, 2018, para. 1). The CalWORKs program has two primary goals which are; (1) to supplement the family income and protect kids from extreme poverty and (2) to help parents to become independent from welfare. Through encouraging and requiring work, the program aims to reduce reliance on welfare and increases the ability of developing families to be self-sufficient while providing a safety net. Initially, the CalWORKs program was designed to follow PRWORA, while at the same time being responsive to the unique needs of Californians. For example, for PRWORA compliance, states must have lifetime limits in place for how long a recipient can obtain assistance. California’s law “was one of the more generous state TANF programs, with a 60-month limit and a relatively modest adult-only sanction for noncompliance in the WTW [welfare-to-work] program” (Karoly et al., 2015, p. 7). Today, the California law reflects changes since the original design, and the lifetime benefit is now a 48-month limit for adults (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 1). In addition to having a more generous limit on lifetime benefit, the CalWORKs program also provided state funding, which allowed children to continue to receive assistance if their parents had reached the lifetime limit. This provision means that children are not sanctioned by loss of benefit if their parent does not meet the work eligibility requirement or exceeds the lifetime assistance cap. Another defining feature of the CalWORKs program was the flexibility it gives to the individual Californian counties to develop and implement it.

One of the additional rationales for adopting CalWORKs was the federal emphasis on cost-saving measures and reduction in caseloads. The Californian Legislative Office completed an analysis of the CalWORKs legislation in 1998. This analysis notes that the CalWORKs program had several expected outcomes. First, the Legislative Analyst’s Office found that CalWORKs would “result in significant net costs in the initial years, followed by longer-term net savings. Because of savings not directly related to CalWORKs […] General Fund spending for this program will be lower than state spending on the prior AFDC program” (Bland & Lieberman, 1998, para. 1). In addition to cost savings, it was anticipated that the overall caseloads of the welfare offices would decrease.

The CalWORKs program provides much more than cash assistance, as the goal is not only to provide assistance but also help families become self-sustaining. In addition to monthly cash grants, the program offers “education, employment, and training programs” (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 1). The services and assistance offered are under one of four CalWORKs components. These four components are time limits, work requirements, supportive services, and parental responsibilities. The welfare to work activities includes alleviating barriers to employment. For example, if a participant has a substance abuse disorder, Substance Abuse Treatment can count as the work requirement as sobriety would ultimately help the participant in obtaining and maintaining employment. Other services, such as mental health counseling and treatment and domestic abuse services serve a similar purpose. In addition to the welfare-to-work opportunities, participants engaged in welfare-to-work activities can receive additional supportive services. The supportive services were designed as incentives and are for those families who are using the welfare-to-work activities. These supportive services include transportation, counseling, ancillary expenses, and intensive case management services (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 1-2).

CalWORKs Implementation

The allocation of cash assistance, services, and opportunities are based on several factors. First, the family must be low-income to qualify. Second, eligibility requirements for CalWORKs were designed to meet the objective of protecting children from poverty. Therefore, “families must meet income and asset tests and children must be deprived of parental support and care due to the incapacity, death, absence of a parent, or unemployment of the principal wage earner” (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 2). Once a family becomes eligible, they must submit paperwork every three months to confirm they continue to meet the outlined eligibility requirements (Danielson, 2012, para. 1). The families who participate in CalWORKs have varying degrees of connection to the welfare-to-work services provided. Approximately 39% of families who received the cash grant are required to work and receive work services. For other families, the parent may meet eligibility for waivers that exempt them from work. For example, parents with young children or disabilities might be exempt from the work requirement. In addition to those families who do not work due to exemption, some children receive cash assistance through CalWORKs while their parents do not qualify for several reasons, including reaching the time limit.

While PRWORA was responsible for changing the structure of the federal welfare system, it allowed for a high level of freedom for states. In line with the federal policy, in California, CalWORKS provides autonomy for counties. Karoly et al. (2015) explain that “CalWORKs gave counties flexibility in setting policy with respect to the use of diversion payments in lieu of cash assistance, in setting the age threshold that applied for the young child exemption (from 12 weeks to 12 months), in providing for a domestic violence exemption, and in the design of the county’s WTW program activities” (p. 7). The county welfare department thus does the administration of the program with support from the California Department of Social Services. As part of the Federal law includes “penalties on the state for not achieving work participation rates” (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 2). In California, the counties which do not achieve the federal work participation rate share in the penalty.

The funding for CalWORKs, as previously mentioned, is a combination of federal TANF funding combined with state and county support. Over time, the budget for CalWORKs and the program itself have been modified by California legislation. As one can see from Chart One: Cots of CalWORKs ($ in millions), the program relies primarily on TANF. However, over time, the contribution from the California general fund to CalWORKs has become closer to TANF. In addition to federal and state funding, the counties in California also contribute to the costs of the program.

Policy Evaluation

Since it began, the CalWORKs program has mostly achieved its objective, as fewer families receive cash assistance, and families use the CalWORKs program to help during times of need. In the 1990s, about 2.7 million people in California received cash assistance. By 2007, less than 1.2 million people received cash assistance. Estimators note that without CalWORKs, there would be 439,000 (225,000 adults and 214,000 children) additional people living in poverty. Without CalWORKs (or a similar program), there would be 94,900 additional children and 91,600 adults living in deep poverty (Danielson & Thorman, 2018, para. 1). The average number of Californians who received some part of CalWORKs benefits in 2017-2018 was 423,097 people. This number is about 100,000 fewer people per month than the average number of monthly participants reported in 2009-2010, which was 537,063 (California Department of Social Services Family Engagement and Empowerment Division, 2019, p. 10). However, the decreased numbers are not entirely due to fewer people needing assistance. In fact, the Californian legislation has made changes to the program since its inception, which has included lowering the time limit from 60-months to 48-months, and the amount of funding provided from the California General Fund has also varied. Additionally, California was significantly impacted by the Great Recession, which increased the number of people living in poverty.

Barriers to this program have been the focus on short-term assistance, level TANF funding despite the Great Recession, and persistent socio-economic factors that contribute to poverty. As Danielson and Thorman (2018) explain, “block grants do not increase when more families qualify for assistance, and federal funding has remained flat—or declined, in inflation-adjusted terms—since TANF was enacted in 1996” (para. 1). Overall, in the United States, the change from ADFC to TANF has resulted in reduced costs ($21 billion in 1997 to $8 billion in 2018); however, “the number of children in deep poverty has risen by nearly 50 percent” (Berlin, 2018, p. 29). In California, the CalWORKs program (and overall federal policy) has emphasized short-term help. However, “about one in five CalWORKs families has received assistance for over six years. In addition, long stays are relatively longer for families with greater disadvantage” (Danielson, 2012, p. 35). With decreased time-limits and funding, some families are simply falling through the cracks. Also, the amount received in cash assistance is often not great enough to cover the need. As a result, the most recent fiscal year included additional general fund amounts to increase the monthly amount and provide additional needed services to help those who have more significant challenges.

CalWORKs Recommendations

Overall, the CalWORKs program has been effective at meeting its intended goals. However, if the recent California budget had not included the increases to CalWORKs, a recommendation would be to increase the amount of cash assistance received by participants. Continuing to have regular increases in line with inflation will be essential to ensure the cash is enough to help a family meet their needs. In addition to ensuring payment is sufficient to cover household needs, it is also important to consider the time limits, mainly as they apply to those who do not have high school diplomas or other significant barriers to obtaining employment. While time limits can help to ensure that case managers are accountable for helping their caseloads meet their objectives, they can also prevent persons who need continued support from receiving it. Changing the program to have the longer time-limit (the federal requirement is 60-months) for people who have additional challenges might help to give them enough time to have true self-sustainability. If this were to occur, the CalWORKs program budget could be revised to allocate a portion of the budget to these cases.

Additionally, pregnant teenagers are required to participate in Cal-Learn, which provides incentives and sanctions to teens depending on their grades (California Department of Social Services, 2017, p. 2). While pregnant teens should be strongly encouraged to attend and participate in CalWORKs and Cal-Learn, mandatory participation might not be the best use of resources. As mandated, participation could result in using limited resources for people who are not willing to implement change in their lives. Furthermore, mandating pregnant teens to Cal-Learn could result in them giving up the CalWORKs benefit, which could cause harm to them or their child.

References

Berlin, G. (2018). The tug of war between worrying about poverty and worrying about dependency. Pathways Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Retrieved from https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways_Winter2018_WelfareReform.pdf

Bland, T., & Lieberman, C. (1998). CalWORKs welfare reform: Major provisions and issues. Legislative Analyst’s Office. Retrieved from https://lao.ca.gov/1998/012398_calworks/012398_calworks.html

California Department of Social Services. (2020). CalWORKs. Retrieved from https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/calworks

California Department of Social Services (2017). CalWORKs Program Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://www.cdss.ca.gov/calworks/res/pdf/CalWORKsProgramFactSheet.pdf

California Department of Social Services Family Engagement and Empowerment Division. (2019). CalWORKs California families working together annual summary. Retrieved from https://www.cdss.ca.gov/Portals/9/DSSDB/CalWORKsAnnualSummaryMarch2019.pdf

Danielson, C. (2012). CalWORKs in transition. Public Policy Institute of California. Retrieved from https://www.ppic.org/publication/calworks-in-transition/#quickpub-title

Danielson, C., & Thorman, T. (2018). Just the facts the CalWORKs program. Public Policy Institute of California. Retrieved from https://www.ppic.org/publication/the-calworks-program/

Gordon, L. & Batlan, F. (2011). The legal history of the Aid to Dependent Children Program. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/public-welfare/aid-to-dependent-children-the-legal-history/

Karoly, L.A., Bozick, R., Davis, L.M., Kitmitto, S., Turk-Bieakei, L., Bos, J.M., Hood, A. Blankenship, C. (2015). Evaluation of the SB 1041 reforms to California’s CalWORKs program. Rand Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7249/j.ctt14bs4s2.10.pdf

Petek, G. (2019). The 2019-20 budget: Analysis of the department of social services budget. Legislative Analyst Office. Retrieved from https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2019/3947/Social-Services-Analysis-022219.pdf

Sawhill, I. & Haskins, R. (2002). Welfare reform and the work support system. The Brookings Institute. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/pb17.pdf

Schaefer, L. (2017). The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. U.S. Centre for Public Impact. Retrieved from https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/personal-responsibility-and-work-opportunity-reconciliation-act-the-clinton-welfare-reform/