A liberal think tank is applauding Maryland and Illinois for phasing out a welfare-reform policy that was intended to discourage parents in welfare families from having children out of wedlock.
There’s no compelling evidence that “family cap” policies affect child-bearing on welfare, Jodie Levin-Epstein wrote in a recent report for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
“If family caps are not achieving their stated aim and are potentially harming families, more states should consider repealing these mistaken policies,” she said.
CLASP is one of many opponents of family-cap policies, which were adopted by 24 states in the 1990s to discourage welfare mothers from having additional children while on assistance.
Under previous welfare rules, if a mother had a child while on welfare, she received a modest increase — usually under $100 — in her monthly check. Under today’s typical cap policy, if a welfare mother has another baby, her welfare check remains the same, although she receives additional food and health benefits for the newborn.
Proponents of family caps said the policy was needed to stop “rewarding” unwed child-bearing by mothers who cannot support their existing children.
Family-cap opponents, including feminist, civil liberties and pro-life groups, said the policy was cruel and could force mothers to obtain abortions.
In 2001, the General Accounting Office said it couldn’t verify whether the policy was working. Due to data limitations, the watchdog agency said, “We cannot conclude that family cap policies reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock births, affect the number of abortions or change the size of the [welfare] caseload.”
The GAO estimated that 108,000 families were affected by a cap in 2001.
The CLASP paper says that the family cap is an obsolete policy because the federal five-year time limit for welfare benefits acts like a cap for the whole family.
“In almost all states, the amount of time a family can receive assistance is now limited to five years or less, and in almost all states, there are work requirements” that apply to parents of very young children, said Mark Greenberg, another welfare analyst at CLASP. “The idea that a family could have another child and receive bigger welfare benefits indefinitely, without working, is no longer possible in light of the changes they have made.”
Maryland originally had a family cap policy, which it called a “child-specific benefit.” Since October 2002, however, the state has allowed counties to opt out of the policy and all counties have done so. The policy is set to expire this September, wrote Mrs. Levin-Epstein.
Illinois is also phasing out its family cap: Babies born this year to welfare mothers will not be subject to the cap, and state agencies may, on a case-by-case basis, increase other families’ checks.
Meanwhile, the longest-running lawsuit on the family cap was settled last year when the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the state’s policy was constitutional. New Jersey became the first state to enact a family cap in 1992. Legal Services of New Jersey sued the state over the policy in 1993.
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