Will Legislature Cut Child Support Money for Welfare Recipients?
One of the more significant points of difference between the state House and state Senate’s budget proposals relates to how to continue to fund welfare benefits, or funds for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
As previously reported by the Newswire, the Governor’s “book 2” budget proposed cutting over 13,000 children off welfare entirely. The Senate and House moderated the Governor’s proposal, with the Senate proposing to cut all welfare benefits by 7.5 percent, and the House not cutting welfare grants but going along with the Governor’s proposal to cut $50 million in Working Connections childcare supports for welfare recipients. House leadership has shown interest in restoring Working Connections, but it’s less clear whether the Senate will also seek to scale back its cuts to welfare grants.
According to Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Shoreline, Chair of the House Early Learning and Children’s Services committee, “the House really does not want to reduce the grants and the Senate really does not want to cut working connections childcare… I’m encouraged that the House has attempted to address this cut in working connections even before we started negotiations. I am hopeful that we will end up with much less of a cut than originally.”
But lost within the bigger budget battles between House and Senate over tens of millions of dollars in potential cuts is a smaller proposal to divert child support payments that currently go to over 13,000 parents who are on welfare into the state’s general fund.
The Senate’s budget would reduce what is called child support “pass through” money for TANF recipients. Non-custodial parents of children whose custodial parents receive welfare are currently required to pay child support. If that child support is equal to or greater than the custodial parent’s welfare benefit, that parent is cut off welfare entirely. If the child care support is less than the custodial parent’s welfare benefit, the state takes the child care support as compensation for its welfare payments. But beginning in October, 2008, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DSHS) began to “pass through” some of that child support money directly to welfare recipients— $100 per month for 1 child, or $200 per month for 2 or more children.
The current Senate proposal would reduce that “pass through” to a flat $50 per household regardless of the number of children in the family— a cut of $50 to $150 per month for qualifying households.
This may not sound like much money. But given the already paltry nature of welfare grants, says Monica Peabody, Executive Director of the Olympia-based Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights (POWER), the cut in child care pass through money will have a real impact on poor families.
“A TANF grant is just 40 percent of the poverty level,” Peabody says, or “$453 per month. Pass through would bring up that income up to $553. We’re not talking about expendable income. We’re talking about people not getting their needs met by government programs, and having the little bit of money that they have taken away.”
The pass through program also supplements TANF funding that has been stagnant for decades. According to Peabody, Washington state’s TANF grant has seen “one 3 percent increase in the last 16 years. It’s not a priority for the government. Child support pass through is just one more attempt to alleviate the desperate poverty of these families.”
According to DSHS, the pass through program served 13,742 participating custodial parents in January of 2010, and distributed $1.5 million to support over 25,700 children.
The small size of the pass through program compared to the size of the overall state budget is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it would be relatively painless to restore child support pass through in the budget reconciliation process compared to restoring much larger programs on the chopping block. On the other hand, its small size makes it a low priority even for human services advocates, some of whom have already given up lobbying for the issue.
According to one member of the Rebuilding Our Economic Future coalition who asked to not be identified, a number of human services advocates aren’t pushing to restore the pass through money because “it’s not a total cut,” and “we have to give something. Given this environment, it’s not easy to say we want everything.”
Comments
By 123camelia on March 18th, 2010 at 2:23 am
Good article and a nice summation of the problem. My only problem with the analysis is given that much of the population joined the chorus of deregulatory mythology, given vested interest is inclined toward perpetuation of the current system and given a lack of a popular cheerleader for your arguments, I’m not seeing much in the way of change.
By Mark Deegan on March 18th, 2010 at 8:22 am
These are not Families. Our govts should be attempting to increase the
desire for stable nuclear families to survive.
By Joel Ryan on March 19th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Thanks again for your continued attention to the plight of families utilizing working connections child care. Without this support parents who are often working low wage jobs would be put in a really difficult situation–having to choose between continuing to work, putting their children in informal care or with an older sibling, or going back on welfare. I understand that lawmakers are being forced to make difficult choices. But cutting child care subsidies will make it more difficult for folks to work, potentially cost the state more, and undermine efforts to help people stay employed and find a job.