States rethinking rules that cap welfare aid to children

BOSTON (AP) — Driven by rising welfare costs and the unproven notion that women on welfare were conceiving children for the purpose of increasing their monthly benefits, more than 20 U.S. states enacted policies in the 1990s that critics decried as harmful and punitive.

Often called family caps or caps on kids, the laws vary among states but essentially serve to deny additional benefits to children born to families already on welfare. In several of those states, the tide has turned against such rules, with Massachusetts poised to become the eighth to repeal its cap.

A $41.5 billion state budget recently approved by the Senate would eliminate what Democrat Karen Spilka called an “outdated, unjust policy that impacts nearly 9,000 vulnerable children.”

In Massachusetts, a mother with two kids who would otherwise be eligible for $578 in monthly cash benefits receives $478 per month if one child was born while she was on public assistance. That child would also be ineligible for a $300 annual clothing allowance provided by the state, though would remain eligible for food assistance and Medicaid.

Advocacy groups pushing for change say they hear frequently from mothers unable to afford diapers or other baby essentials due to the policy.

Naomi Meyer, a senior attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services, rejects the premise of the family cap, which was ostensibly to discourage out-of-wedlock births and remove any financial incentive for more children.

“People’s decisions about having babies are sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional ... but they are not impacted by whether they are going to get another $100 a month,” said Meyer.

For Rachel Mulroy, a single mother who was on and off welfare for several years while in what she called an abusive relationship, the cap meant skimping on things like bus fare and “making terrible decisions to try and save on diapers because they are so expensive.”

Instead of taking the bus, the New Bedford woman recalls loading her daughters – then ages 1 and 3 – into a little red wagon and walking more than a mile back and forth to the nearest grocery store. Once, when it began to pour, a sympathetic police officer stopped and gave the family a lift.

Though not on welfare when her second child was born, when Mulroy became homeless and reapplied for benefits she was told that under Massachusetts rules the second child would still fall under the cap.

“It felt like we were being punished,” said Mulroy, 35, who later earned a college degree and now works full-time as a community organizer.

The Senate budget would lift the cap Jan. 1 and authorize $5.5 million to cover the additional benefits over the last six months of Massachusetts’ fiscal year. The provision must be reconciled with language in the House budget that also repeals the rule, but not until July 1, 2019.

Eliminating the cap is a “bad idea” that fails to address welfare dependency, said Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a conservative-leaning group that frequently targets Democratic lawmakers on spending and taxes. He called instead for stronger work requirements for welfare recipients.

“Everything else is a feel good Band-Aid for the problem,” said Craney.

California repealed the cap in 2016 in a move that at the time was estimated would cost the state $220 million annually. Caps were also lifted by Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wyoming, according to a tally from the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.

Full or partial caps remain in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, according to The Urban Institute’s welfare rules database.

Idaho is an example of a state with an “implicit” cap, as it provides the same maximum welfare benefit to families regardless of size.