Implementation of the Family Cap: Models for Integrating Family Planning Services

Robyn R. Bender

Georgetown University Law Center; Class of 1997

Welfare reform has become an increasingly important issue over the past decade. The call for reform has been accompanied by unfounded stereotypes of welfare recipients as lazy individuals who abuse the system. Until August 1996, the main federal welfare program was Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC"), which has since been replaced by the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Block Grant ("TANF"). Under AFDC, states were allowed to waive federal requirements and test their own reform measures. One of the more popular experimental programs is the "family cap," which eliminates the standard increase in benefits for any child born to an AFDC recipient more than ten months after application for AFDC.

A family cap forces a family to provide for more members with the same amount of money that it received prior to the birth of an additional child. As a result, each member of that family becomes subject to a higher level of deprivation. Some of the states which utilize the family cap have attempted to offset the loss of increased benefits to recipients under a family cap through either a child support offset or an earned income disregard. Unfortunately, while an offset provision may help some families, not all to whom a family cap applies will be eligible for the offset. A family which does not have a member who can work, for example, would not be able to take advantage of the increased earned income disregard.

One of the purported goals of family cap provisions is to lower the birth rate among welfare recipients. Given that goal, the most logical way to achieve it is to provide recipients with information and access to family planning services. Utilization of these services should be voluntary so as to allow the ultimate decision to remain with each individual. The family cap initiative essentially punishes families, and especially children, for parental behavior. Family planning services can provide welfare recipients with the information they need to make informed decisions.

Vol. IV, No. 2, p. 379 (1997)

 

Revised July 17, 2003 (MD)