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CLUELESS IN SACRAMENTO
Calif. welfare program, nation's largest, draws fire Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 07/29/2009 - 13:31. * By STEVE WIEGAND, Sacramento Bee * western news It's the kind of statistic that makes radio talk show hosts drool: California is home to about 12 percent of all Americans -- and more than 30 percent of all Americans on welfare. Critics of the state's welfare program, called CalWORKs, say the statistic provides clear proof that the system is flabby and overly beneficent, particularly as compared to other states. "We are more lenient here; we are more generous in the state of California," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said last week, "and also we are giving greater benefits for longer periods of time, and there are really no consequences if someone doesn't fulfill the work requirements." But program officials and advocates for welfare recipients say the statistic masks the fact that California's welfare system is a rarity: a government program that actually works. "That [statistic] is an apples-and-oranges thing," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. CalWORKs has been "one of the most successful programs the state has had in the past decade." There's little argument over the numbers themselves. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 1.2 million Californians -- 950,000 of them children -- participated during the 2008 fiscal year in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. In California, TANF is called CalWORKs and is fueled by about $5.5 billion in federal and state funds. The 1.2 million Californians receiving cash assistance represent 31.3 percent of all TANF recipients -- or more welfare patrons than the next nine most populous states combined. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, California's $694-a-month grant for a single-parent family of three was surpassed only by those in Alaska and New York. But system officials and program analysts dispute the commonly held theory that California's relatively high benefit level attracts large numbers of welfare recipients from other states. "We've never seen any evidence of that," said Mecca, whose experience dates back over two decades. "The fact is, low-income people just can't pack up and move that easily." Instead, officials and analysts point to a covey of other factors that have helped swell the ranks of welfare recipients in California, including: The safety net. The federal TANF program, a product of compromise in the mid-1990s between Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress, required that recipients be weaned off the program within five years. California, however, is one of 11 states that have a "safety net" under its welfare program. The net allows children under age 18 to continue to receive cash assistance even after the five-year clock has run out on their parents. Lack of "full family" sanctions. Under the TANF program, adult recipients who fail to comply with rules on working, seeking work or undergoing job training (130 hours a month is required in California) can be sanctioned by a state, and their benefits withheld. But California is one of six states that penalize only the adult portion of the benefit -- which is currently $139. Moreover, the five-year clock is suspended while a sanction is in place. That means children can continue to receive benefits until they turn 18, even if their parent or parents have been sanctioned for years. "Technically, you could be on [welfare] aid for 18 years," said John Wagner, director of the state's Department of Social Services. "With our current system, an adult could either work 130 hours or face $139 in sanctions. That's very little incentive to participate in activities, including work, that lead to a family's self-sufficiency." Undocumented immigrants. About 48,000 of the state's 526,000 CalWORKs households are headed by illegal immigrants. While the adults are not eligible for welfare, any of their children born on U.S. soil -- about 95,000 -- are American citizens, and thus entitled to all government services. 
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