Curly Surmudgeon wrote:
> On Tue, 10 May 2005 21:28:21 -0700, man_in_black529 wrote:
>
> > Too bad every Cato study's riddled with errors, all
> > biasing in one direction. PLONK!
>
> Another rumor without substantiation.
Actually, that's how all think tanks work:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The Cato Institute
Report On Welfare Benefits: Do Cato's California Numbers Add
Up?", March 7, 1996
A recent Cato Institute report concluded that in every state
in the nation, welfare pays far more than a low-wage job.
According to the report, "The value of the total package of
benefits [received by AFDC recipients] relative to a job
providing the same after-tax income ranges from a high of
$36,400 in Hawaii to a low of $11,500 in Mississippi. In
eight jurisdictions...welfare pays at least the equivalent
of a $25,000 a year job."
The report estimated that in California, the typical AFDC
family received benefits totaling $20,687 annually. Governor
Pete Wilson has cited the report as justification for
reductions he has proposed in welfare benefits.
Cato's conclusions are striking. They also are inaccurate --
the Cato report is replete with analytic errors. For the
nation in general and for California in particular, the
report paints a misleading picture both of the amount of
benefits most AFDC families receive and of the supposed
advantages from relying on welfare rather than working.
The Cato report substantially overstates the income that
AFDC families receive. It counts benefits that only a small
fraction of AFDC families get -- such as housing assistance,
which fewer than one-tenth of AFDC families in California
receive -- as though the typical AFDC family receives them.
It incorrectly measures -- and overstates -- the value of
other forms of assistance, including food stamps, low-income
energy assistance, and WIC. It counts Medicaid as though it
were income to a family, even though Medicaid is insurance
that cannot be used to purchase food, clothing and shelter.
Most analysts believe Medicaid should not be counted as
income as Cato did.
When these problems with the Cato report are corrected, the
typical family of three receiving AFDC and food stamps in
California turns out to receive less than $10,000 in income,
rather than $20,687 as Cato mistakenly alleges. This leaves
such a family about $2,000 below the poverty line.
While overstating the income of AFDC families, the Cato
report substantially understates the income that low-income
working families receive, further skewing its findings. The
report counts food stamps as income for welfare families but
fails to count food stamps as income for low-income working
families, who also are usually eligible for food stamp aid.
The same error is committed for a range of programs
available to both low-income working and welfare families;
in virtually every case, Cato counts benefits from these
programs as income only for welfare families.
Cato also counts Medicaid as income for welfare families
while counting neither Medicaid nor employer-provided
insurance as income for working families. Yet Census data
for California show that 53 percent of children living in
working poor families not receiving government cash
assistance are covered by private health insurance or
Medicaid.[1]
Thus, Cato counts housing assistance as income for
California AFDC families when fewer than 10 percent of them
receive a housing subsidy, but fails to count health
insurance coverage as income for working poor families when
half of the children in these families have coverage.
The Cato report concludes that families receiving AFDC in
California are better off than families earning $11.59 an
hour. In fact, a California family of three with a full-time
worker earning $11.59 an hour typically had total income in
1994 that exceeded the income of a family on AFDC by more
than $10,000. (The Cato report uses data for 1994; this
analysis does the same.) Even a family of three with a full-
time, minimum wage worker that receives no AFDC benefits has
more income than a non-working family that does receive
AFDC.
In short, Cato's conclusions that welfare pays much more
than low-wage work -- and that AFDC families live far above
the poverty line -- are inaccurate for California and
virtually all other states. Based on the erroneous
conclusion that welfare typically pays much more than low
wage work, however, the Cato report calls for a dramatic
reduction in assistance for poor families.
California's Governor, Pete Wilson, has advanced a proposal
consistent with Cato's recommendation, proposing substantial
across-the-board reductions in AFDC benefits. Governor
Wilson's plan would cut benefits immediately, impose
additional across-the-board reductions once a family has
received aid for six months, and impose further cuts when
the family has received assistance for 12 months. Assistance
levels would be reduced for families in which parents are
complying with work and job search requirements but are
unable to find a job.
These benefit cuts would follow a series of other reductions
in AFDC benefits in California since 1990. Benefits
currently are 26 percent below their 1989-1990 level, after
adjusting for inflation. If additional AFDC benefit cuts
that have been enacted but are not yet in effect are
implemented, the benefit reduction in California since 1989-
1990 will equal 30 percent to 35 percent. If Governor
Wilson's new proposals also become law, AFDC benefits will
fall still further below the levels of just a few years ago.
In advancing his latest proposals in the welfare area,
Governor Wilson has relied heavily on the Cato report.
Materials the Wilson Administration distributed at the time
of the Governor's State of the State address said,
"According to a recent study by the Cato Institute, the
total benefit package for an AFDC recipient is more than
$20,000 a year." Several key state legislators have also
recently cited the Cato study.
Policymakers and analysts from across the political spectrum
agree that welfare reform is needed and that the welfare
system should do more to reward work. The debate over how to
transform AFDC into a work-based system which moves families
from welfare to work, helps working poor families make ends
meet, and provides a safety net for families in which
parents try but are unable to find work is one of the most
important policy debates facing the nation. As this debate
move forward, it should be informed by accurate information,
however, not misleading analysis.
CATO ANALYSIS MISREPRESENTS THE BENEFITS RECEIVED BY TYPICAL
AFDC FAMILIES
The Cato report concludes that AFDC families in California
typically receive benefits totaling $20,687. This
substantially overstates the level of benefits available to
most California families that receive AFDC.
The Cato report counts housing assistance, low-income energy
assistance, and WIC benefits as benefits that California
AFDC families typically receive. But AFDC families do not
typically get all of these benefits. In California, 90
percent of AFDC families do not receive any form of housing
assistance. Cato adds $6,413 to the income the typical
California AFDC family receives on the erroneous assumption
that the typical family get housing assistance.[2]
In addition, roughly 90 percent of children in California
AFDC families do not receive WIC benefits. Yet Cato also
adds WIC benefits into its calculation of the income a
typical California AFDC family receives.
Reliable data do not exist to determine the proportion of
AFDC families in California or other states that receive
energy assistance through the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Some AFDC families receive this
benefit; others do not. Cato assumes the typical AFDC family
in every state receives these benefits as well.
The proportion of AFDC families that simultaneously receive
housing assistance plus energy assistance plus WIC is tiny.
In California, the proportion is likely to be something like
one or two percent. Cato assumes, however, that the typical
California AFDC family receives all three benefits.
Furthermore, Cato assumes the typical California AFDC family
receives WIC benefits for two children, even though nine of
every ten children receiving AFDC in California receive no
WIC benefits at all.
Cato's treatment of Medicaid creates other problems. The
Cato report counts Medicaid benefits as income that AFDC
families receive, showing Medicaid as increasing the income
of California AFDC families by $2,784. While AFDC families
do receive Medicaid, counting it as income is problematic.
Medicaid is an insurance program; the payments it makes go
to doctors and hospitals, not to the insured families. These
Medicaid payments cannot be used to meet basic family
expenses such as food, clothing, and shelter.
Earlier this year, a distinguished National Academy of
Sciences panel issued a major report on how poverty should
be measured. The panel concluded that the value of health
insurance coverage, including both coverage through a
government program and privately provided coverage, should
not be considered income.[3]
Not only does Cato count certain benefits as income when the
typical AFDC family does not receive them, but Cato also
exaggerates the average benefit levels these programs
provide. The low-income energy assistance program is a case
in point. According to a LIHEAP information memorandum the
Department of Health and Human Services issued in March 1995
-- the source Cato itself cites as the basis for its data on
the energy assistance program -- the average benefit from
the LIHEAP heating/cooling assistance program is $81 a year
in California. Cato estimates the annual LIHEAP benefit that
California AFDC families receive, however, as being $368.
The Cato authors arrive at this highly inflated number in
part by assuming that the typical AFDC recipient in
California receives not only heating/cooling assistance but
also LIHEAP "crisis assistance." In fact, about 80 percent
of the California households that receive energy assistance
benefits get aid only for heating/cooling assistance and do
not receive any crisis aid. Even if every household in
California that received LIHEAP crisis assistance was an
AFDC family, which is not the case, only 10 percent of all
AFDC families would have received this aid. Cato counts it
anyway as a benefit the typical AFDC family receives.
Cato's estimates of the food stamp benefits that AFDC
families receive are overstated as well. A family's food
stamp benefits depend in part on the amount the family pays
for housing. A family that receives housing assistance gets
substantially less in food stamps than a family that
receives no rental subsidy. As noted, the prototype family
that Cato uses in its study receives housing assistance.
Such a family therefore would qualify for smaller food stamp
benefits than the typical AFDC family does. But Cato assumes
that the typical AFDC family simultaneously receives housing
assistance and receives the food stamp benefit levels that
families get if they do not get housing assistance.
The typical California AFDC family of three living in
subsidized housing receives food stamps totaling $152 per
month. This is $62 less per month -- $744 less per year --
than the food stamp benefit that Cato assumes the typical
AFDC family gets.
In short, the Cato report counts various benefits that at
least 90 percent of AFDC families do not receive, improperly
counts health insurance coverage as income, and
substantially exaggerates the average benefit for many of
the benefits it counts.
CATO UNDERSTATES THE INCOME OF WORKING FAMILIES
In addition to overstating the level of benefits that most
AFDC families receive, the authors of the report ignore all
means-tested benefits that low-income working families
receive, with the sole exception of the Earned Income Tax
Credit. By ignoring these benefits, Cato vastly overstates
the wage level needed for work to be more remunerative than
welfare.
While Cato counts Medicaid as though it increases the income
of AFDC recipients, Cato does not consider the value of
employer-provided health insurance for working families that
are covered under an employer health plan. Cato counts cash
plus Medicaid benefits when welfare families receive them,
but counts wages only -- ignoring medical benefits -- when
working families receive them.
Furthermore, Cato fails to acknowledge that many children in
low-income working families that are not on AFDC receive
Medicaid. Under federal law, all children under age six
whose families have incomes below 133 percent of the poverty
line are eligible for Medicaid. So are all children aged six
through 11 whose families have incomes below 100 percent of
the poverty line. Millions of children in low-income working
families receive Medicaid.
Census data show that 53 percent of all children in
California who live in working poor families that receive no
government cash assistance are covered by either private
health insurance or Medicaid. Cato ignores this fact, acting
as though only AFDC families receive health care coverage.
Cato's treatment of the food stamp program also is
problematic. Eligibility for the food stamp program is based
on a household's income and asset levels. Working poor
families without significant assets are eligible for food
stamp benefits.
Moreover, unlike housing assistance or energy assistance,
the food stamp program is an entitlement program; all who
are eligible and apply for aid receive its benefits. In
1993, the food stamp program provided an average benefit of
$181 per month -- or nearly $2,200 per year -- to some
134,000 working poor households with children in California.
Nevertheless, Cato fails to count food stamp benefits as
income for working poor families. Food stamp benefits are
counted as income only for AFDC families. (Please see the
text box for a detailed discussion of how to account for
food stamps.)
The Cato report also ignores the receipt of WIC benefits by
many low-income working families. Eligibility for the WIC
program is based on income and nutritional risk, not on AFDC
receipt. In 1994, some 412,000 children receiving WIC in
California -- or 70 percent of all children receiving WIC in
the state -- had no AFDC income.[4] These are primarily
children from low-income working families. Despite this,
Cato counts WIC as income only for AFDC families and fails
to count it as income for working families.
Cato's treatment of other benefits follows the same path.
Some working families receive energy assistance and housing
assistance. Cato declines to count these benefits as income
to working families, counting the benefits as income just
for AFDC families.
In their report, the Cato authors contend it is proper to
include benefits such as housing assistance and WIC as
income for AFDC families despite the fact that most AFDC
recipients do not receive them. In defending this decision,
the authors state, "We believe it was proper to include
those benefits because at least some recipients in every
state do receive them." It appears this same reasoning does
not apply when considering whether to count benefits as
income for working families.
TYPICAL AFDC FAMILIES IN CALIFORNIA HAVE INCOMES BELOW THE
POVERTY LINE
The typical AFDC family receives AFDC and food stamps. Both
these benefits should be counted when determining such a
family's income. Other than Medicaid, these are the only
significant benefits that a majority of AFDC families
receive.
In 1994, a California family of three was eligible for a
maximum AFDC benefit of $607 per month, or $7,284 per year.
(Seventy percent of AFDC families in California include two
or fewer children.)
A family of three receiving $607 in AFDC benefits would have
received approximately $200 per month in food stamp
benefits, or about $2,400 a year.[5]
The typical California AFDC family of three thus had cash
and food stamp income of $9,684 in 1994. This placed the
family more than $2,000 below the poverty line.[6]
When additional benefits other than housing are considered,
a typical AFDC family that gets such benefits still would
receive a total benefit package that leaves it well below
the poverty line. For example, a family receiving WIC
benefits for a child over age one or a pregnant woman would
receive $400 to $500 a year in such benefits.[7] (Families
receiving WIC benefits for an infant or for both an infant
and a mother would receive higher WIC benefits. But families
can receive these higher benefits only for a relatively
short period of time. Moreover, the typical AFDC family does
not include an infant.) As noted earlier, a family receiving
LIHEAP benefits in California typically received $81 a year
from that program in 1994, a figure that is likely to be
smaller today since federal funding for LIHEAP has been cut.
AFDC families of three that receive food stamps plus WIC
plus energy assistance -- which most AFDC families do not
get -- thus would typically receive less than $10,300 per
year. This is still $1,500 below the poverty line and far
below Cato's estimate that the typical California AFDC
family receives $20,687.
Some 90 percent of California AFDC families do not receive
any housing assistance. Even AFDC families that do receive
housing assistance typically have incomes well below Cato's
$20,687 figure. Housing assistance saves California AFDC
families that receive such aid an average of approximately
$2,300 a year by reducing the out-of-pocket expenses these
families incur for housing. (In calculating the value of
housing subsidies, we have followed the Census Bureau's
approach of counting the amount that a family saves on
housing costs due to receipt of a housing subsidy as the
amount by which the subsidy boosts the family's
income.)[8],[9]
A family receiving housing assistance is unlikely also to
receive WIC and LIHEAP benefits. The 10 percent of
California AFDC families that receive housing assistance
thus typically have total income a few hundred dollars above
the federal poverty line. It also should be noted that the
poverty line is uniform nationally and does not reflect
higher-than-average living costs in California. Were the
poverty line adjusted to reflect variations in living costs,
California AFDC families that receive housing assistance
would likely be below it.
(Note: the cost to the government of providing subsidized
housing is often higher than the amount a family saves on
housing costs. Some families that receive rental
certificates and vouchers to help pay the rent on private
apartments may be able to afford somewhat higher quality
housing as a result, such as housing that is less crowded or
in a less dangerous neighborhood. In these cases, the value
to the family may be greater than the amount the family
saves by living in subsidized housing. On the other hand,
for a substantial number of families living in public
housing, the value of the subsidy to the family may be less
than the amount the family saves on rent. Some public
housing may be of poorer quality or in a more dangerous area
than the private housing that families would rent if they
paid more and did not live in public housing. If the housing
is of lower quality than the housing a family would have
rented without the subsidy, the amount the family saves may
overstate the value the family receives from the subsidy.)
FAMILIES WITH JOBS HAVE HIGHER INCOMES THAN AFDC RECIPIENTS
WITHOUT EARNINGS
The Cato report suggests that a family receiving AFDC would
not be made better off if the parent were to find a low-wage
job. While most observers agree that the AFDC system does
too little to encourage and reward work, the Cato report is
inaccurate on this point. A family of three with a full-
time, minimum wage worker generally has income higher than a
non-working family receiving AFDC despite Cato's claim that
an AFDC recipient would need to find a job paying $11.59 per
hour to be "better-off."
A family with a full-time, year-round minimum wage worker
has gross earnings of $8,840. (The federal minimum wage is
$4.25 per hour.) Such a family pays FICA taxes (that is,
Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes) but also
receives the Earned Income Tax Credit.
In 1994, a family of three consisting of two children and a
parent working full time throughout the year at the minimum
wage received a $2,528 EITC payment and paid $676 in FICA
tax, for a net gain of approximately $1,850. The family also
would qualifyfor food stamps unless its assets were too
high.
When food stamps, the earned income credit, and FICA taxes
are considered, a family of three with a full-time minimum
wage worker and limited assets could have received total
income of about $13,400 in 1994. This exceeds the income of
an AFDC family of three in California by more than
$3,000.[10]
Furthermore, as part of the 1993 budget law, the Earned
Income Tax Credit is expanding to make work still more
remunerative than welfare. In 1996, the year in which the
1993 EITC expansions are phased in fully, a family with two
children in which the parent works full time at the minimum
wage will qualify for an EITC of $3,536. This expansion adds
another $1,000 to the income of the minimum wage family,
causing its total income to exceed that of the non-working
AFDC family by more than $4,000.
As noted, large numbers of working poor and near-poor
families also are eligible for benefits such as Medicaid,
employer-paid health coverage, WIC, energy assistance and
housing assistance. While working poor families are less
likely to receive these benefits (except for employer-paid
health insurance) than non-working families are -- and while
the typical working poor family, like the typical non-
working poor family, is very unlikely to benefit from all
these programs -- these benefits do help substantial numbers
of poor and near-poor working families meet basic needs.
Although a family of three with a full-time minimum wage
worker receiving no AFDC income would generally have income
higher than a non-working family receiving AFDC, some
families with a full-time minimum wage worker would still be
eligible for a modest income supplement from the AFDC
program. California permits AFDC families that find jobs to
keep more of their earnings than do many other states. If an
AFDC recipient found a full-time, minimum wage job in 1994,
the family would have been eligible for $300 per month in
AFDC benefits (offset in part by reduced food stamp
benefits).
In this way, the California AFDC program does a somewhat
better job than the programs in other states of rewarding
work.[11] Indeed, the structure of California's AFDC program
provides parents with a significant financial incentive to
find work even if they can find only part-time, low-wage
jobs.
Working families that remain eligible for AFDC also receive
assistance in paying for child care expenses, and they
continue to qualify for Medicaid coverage. Families that
find jobs in which they earn too much to be eligible for
AFDC are eligible for a year of transitional Medicaid
coverage and transitional child care assistance.
This is not to suggest that the safety net for working poor
families is as strong as it should be. The programs' asset
limits frequently prevent the working poor from qualifying
for food stamps or AFDC (these limits are more stringent for
AFDC eligibility than for food stamps), and working poor
families that have not recently left welfare for work do not
benefit from transitional Medicaid or child care assistance.
In addition, while virtually all poor children born after
September 1983 are eligible for Medicaid, including children
in working poor families not on AFDC, the parents in these
working families often lack health insurance for themselves.
Most states, including California, also lack sufficient
child care resources to provide child care subsidies to most
low-income working families needing such assistance.
Moreover, the value of the minimum wage in 1996 will be 28
percent below its average value in the 1970s, after
adjusting for inflation. This year or next, the purchasing
power of the minimum wage will fall to its lowest level
since 1955.
Policies to assist the working poor need strengthening. But
the problems facing the working poor should not lead to the
erroneous conclusion that non-working families receiving
AFDC have higher incomes than families with a low-wage
worker.
CONCLUSION
The authors of the Cato report make serious methodological
errors in their analysis of the benefits that both AFDC
families and working families receive. As a result, their
estimates of the amount of earnings that working families
need to be better off than welfare families are highly
exaggerated. The authors inflate the value of basic
assistance available to most families that receive AFDC
while ignoring various forms of assistance available to low-
income working families.
These mistakes lead the authors to the erroneous conclusion
that families receiving AFDC are better off than families
with substantial earnings and to a policy recommendation
that benefits for poor families receiving cash assistance
should be reduced dramatically. The authors fail to note
that this type of "reform" has essentially been tried across
the nation over the past two decades -- a period during
which the combined value of AFDC and food stamps in the
typical state has fallen more than one-quarter in purchasing
power -- without producing the desired results in reforming
welfare. The principal impact of this reduction in benefits
has been to make poor families with children poorer.
In addition, while the report correctly points out that many
families with a low-wage worker remain poor and face
difficult challenges, it offers no suggestions for assisting
these working families. It provides no recommendations to
enhance the advantages of work over welfare in ways that
help struggling working families to make ends meet.
As debate over welfare reform progresses at federal and
state levels, participants in the debate need to know that
the data they use and the claims they make are accurate.
Policymakers and analysts also need to search for ways to
assist working families trying to raise children on low
wages. The Cato report provides no help on either front.
NOTES
1. Government cash assistance includes both Supplemental
Security Income for poor elderly and disabled people and
AFDC. Recipients of both of these programs are automatically
eligible for Medicaid under current law.
2. Cato acknowledges that most AFDC families do not receive
a housing subsidy on page 28 of its report but otherwise
ignores this fact.
3. The Census Bureau publishes a number of alternate
measures of poverty. A few of the measures count Medicaid as
income. Compared to these measure as well, the Cato method
greatly inflates the amount by which Medicaid raises the
incomes of California AFDC families.
Under these alternative Census Bureau poverty measures, the
Census Bureau counts as income the amount of resources that
Medicaid frees up for other uses. Under this approach, the Census
Bureau considers Medicaid to increase family income
if the family's other income is sufficient to meet the
family's basic housing and food needs. The Census Bureau
compares a family's income to the Department of
Agriculture's Thrifty Food Plan and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development's measure of the "fair market
rent" to determine whether the family's income is adequate
to meet these needs. In 1994, the combined value of the
Thrifty Food Plan and the fair market rent for a family of
three in California was slightly above $14,000. Since the
typical AFDC family of three in California has income below
this threshold, there is not more income than needed to meet
these basic needs. As a result, when using its alternative
measures of poverty that include non-cash benefits, the
Census Bureau does not assign an income value to receipt of
Medicaid by AFDC families in California.
4. These figures include both infants and children under age
five receiving WIC.
5. The food stamp benefit for a California family of three
with AFDC income of $607 per month was calculated using the
median shelter cost for three-person California families
that received all of their cash income from AFDC and were
not among the 10 percent of families with the lowest shelter
costs. The 10 percent of families with the lowest shelter
costs was excluded to screen out most AFDC families that
receive housing assistance. Had these families not been
screened out, the average food stamp benefit for AFDC
families would have been lower.
In 1993, the median housing cost of those three-person in
California families that received all of their cash income
from AFDC and were not among the 10 percent of families with
the lowest shelter costs was $385 per month. This figure was
adjusted for inflation between 1993 and 1994 to calculate
the food stamp benefits an AFDC family would have received
in 1994.
6. In 1994, the poverty line for a family of three was
$11,821.
7. In 1994, the average monthly value of the WIC food
package in California was $34 for children, $43 for pregnant
and post-partum women, and $70 for infants. An AFDC family
receiving benefits for a child would receive average
benefits of $411 a year. A family receiving benefits for an
infant would receive about $843 a year. Data are from "Study
of WIC Participant and Program Characteristics, 1994,"
December 1995, Abt Associates.
8. The methodology used here to determine the value of
housing assistance is similar to that used by the Census
Bureau when it calculates the value of housing assistance
for families. Each year, the Census Bureau releases poverty
data using alternative measures of income. Some of these
measures include the value of housing assistance. In these
measures, the Census Bureau calculates the value of housing
assistance for a family by taking the difference between the
housing cost the family faces with its subsidy and the
estimated cost of housing it would face if it did not
receive a housing subsidy.
9. A family of three in California with AFDC income of $607
per month would pay approximately $158 per month for housing
if the family received a federal rent subsidy or lived in
public housing. This is determined by applying the federal
rules regarding tenant rent contributions in public housing
and in the Section 8 rental assistance program. The median
housing cost for a family of three that receives all of its
cash income from AFDC was $385 per month in 1993 when the 10
percent of families with the lowest housing costs are
excluded. Adjusted for inflation, this figure is $397 in
1994 dollars.
At first glance, housing assistance thus appears to increase
the family's monthly income by $239, since the $397 median
monthly housing cost the family would otherwise face is
reduced by $239 by receipt of housing assistance. However,
food stamp benefits are partially determined by a family's
housing costs, and the food stamp benefits an AFDC family
receives are lower if the family gets housing assistance. A
typical California AFDC family of three that receives
housing assistance would receive food stamp benefits $47 a
month smaller than the food stamp benefits paid to a similar
family that does not receive housing assistance and spends
$397 per month on housing. Thus, receipt of housing
assistance increases a typical AFDC family's disposable
income by a net total of approximately $192 per month, or
about $2,300 per year.
10. Similar to the methodology used in calculating the food
stamp benefits for AFDC families, the level of food stamp
benefits for this family was calculated using the median
housing cost in California for families of three with
earnings that receive food stamps.
11. While a family that receives AFDC and then finds a full-
time, minimum wage job would be eligible for AFDC, families
that were not first on AFDC may not be. The AFDC program in
California treats earnings differently if the family found
the job prior to applying for aid.
Copyright 1996 by Center on Budget and policy Priorities.
Readers may redistribute this article to other individuals
for noncommercial use, provided that the text and this
notice remain intact. This article may not be resold,
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without prior written permission from the author. If you
have any questions about permissions, please contact The
Electronic Policy Network, P.O. Box 383080, Cambridge, MA
02238, query.TakeThisOut@epn.org, or by phone at (617) 547-2950.
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