Due Process Rights Under Connecticut's Time-Limited Benefit Program for Families in Need

Elana S. Marton

University of Connecticut School of Law; Class of 1997

Accompanying recent modifications to federal welfare policy are changes in state policy. For example, programs granting unlimited benefits to welfare recipients are being replaced with time-limited programs. Connecticut was one of the first states to implement such a program, placing a 21-month time limit on the receipt of cash benefits in an effort to encourage work and responsibility. Under the Jobs First program, recipients may also be entitled to a 6-month extension if through good faith efforts they are unable to secure employment.

Under the reformed system, it was uncertain whether those who requested extensions were guaranteed constitutional Due Process protections. That is, whether an individual's interest in the receipt of welfare benefits constituted a protected interest. An inquiry into the validity of the traditional rights/privileges distinction and an analogy to recipients of AFDC benefits has revealed that welfare benefits should constitute a property interest. Therefore they do require procedural protections such as a fair hearing or adequate notice of the termination of benefits. However, a determination that welfare benefits do not constitute such a property interest should not deprive Connecticut welfare recipients of protection. State or agency regulation could certainly establish an additional category of protections. Without these protections, the poor who need welfare benefits will be unable to safeguard their right to receive them.

Vol. V, No. 2, p. 349 (1997)

Revised July 17, 2003 (MD)