By MATT MURPHY and STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE |
PUBLISHED: March 6, 2019 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: July 11, 2019 at 12:00 a.m.
BOSTON — The momentum to repeal a decades-old cap on children that qualify for family welfare benefits got a boost Tuesday when bills filed by Rep. Majorie Decker and Sen. Sal DiDomenico advanced through committee after advocates tried to pick up where they left off last summer.
The Legislature last year twice sent Gov. Charlie Baker legislation that would have lifted the so-called “cap on kids,” but the effort died for good when Baker vetoed the bill in August after the Legislature ended formal sessions for the year and could not vote to override.
This time around Democratic leaders, with the support of House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka, are hoping to get the bill moving quickly and pass it with or without the support of the governor.
“I don’t know exactly the timeline, but I think there’s a lot of interest in both chambers,” said Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, the co-chair of the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities.
The bill would eliminate a cap that precludes families from receiving additional cash assistance for children born while a family is already receiving benefits, or if they had received family welfare benefits in the past.
Advocates estimate that there are roughly 8,700 children who fall under the cap in Massachusetts, which prevents families from receiving an additional $100 a month to help support that child. The policy was adopted in 1995 as part of the package of welfare reforms that was intended to discourage families receiving public support from having more children.
The Coalition to Lift the Cap on Kids said the cap did not actually limit child bearing by families on welfare, and provided 2016 data showing that families on welfare and those who don’t receive public support had an average of 1.8 children. Data comparing family sizes before and after the implementation of the cap in 1995 was not immediately available.
“I don’t know about anyone else here who grew up in poverty, but as someone who grew up in public housing my mom certainly didn’t get the business plan that said have more children, you’ll get rich,” said Decker, calling it a “failed policy” that must be repealed.
The Committee on Children, Families and Disabilities, co-chaired by Chang-Diaz and Rep. Kay Khan, held its first hearing of the new session on Monday where the Decker and DiDomenico bills (H104, S37) were the subject unanimous testimony by groups in favor of eliminating the cap. After the hearing, the committee voted almost unanimously to recommend the bills (H 140/ S 70), with Republican Rep. Michael Soter reserving his rights.
“We are not doing our job if we don’t pass this quickly,” said DiDomenico, an assistant majority leader in the Senate.
The wildcard in this year’s debate is Baker, who has said he does not oppose lifting the cap, but has sought to link it with other welfare reforms that Democrats in the Legislature have consistently rejected.
Baker has proposed to lift the cap in his budget proposal, but has also rekindled his push to count adult Supplemental Security Income as income toward eligibility for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits, the same way veterans’ or disability insurance benefits are counted as income in the calculation of benefits.
Former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick tried to do the same thing, but also met a wall in the Legislature.
Decker called it “nonsense” to suggest that Baker actually supports lifting the cap on kids. She said he has “conflated” two issues that should be separate, and vetoed the cap legislation last summer when it was clear the Legislature would not go along with his other welfare reforms.
“We’ve twice passed this,” Decker said. “What the governor has been wanting to do, the governor has been for four years trying to reduce state benefits to the poorest amongst us who are also disabled,” Decker said.
The governor’s office referred questions about his position on the Decker and DiDomenico bills to his budget proposal, in which he has again proposed to both lift the cap and reduce the state’s TANF benefit costs.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee put language to lift the cap in a supplemental budget bill that it will vote on Thursday, but DiDomenico said Tuesday conversation between the House and Senate were continuing about how best to move forward.
Khan, who voted against the welfare cap in 1995, said she does not support the governor’s additional reform proposals, but is optimistic that something could be worked out.
“There’s probably some negotiating that needs to happen between the the Legislature and the governor but I was happy to see it in (the governor’s budget). That’s a good start,” Khan said.
The hearing featured supportive testimony from legal groups, social workers and mothers who said they could use the extra money to buy diapers or pay an electric bill.
Twenty-four states adopted family caps in the mid-1990s around the same time federal welfare reform gained traction under President Bill Clinton, but since then eight states have repealed those laws and Massachusetts is one of 16 with a cap still in effect.
The cost of lifting the cap has been estimated at $13 million a year at a time when welfare caseloads have dropped from 103,000 families in 1995 to a projected 28,900 in 2019 and spending has come down from $634 million to $185 million in the same timeframe.
“We already feel like numbers in the system and when you put the words ‘cap baby’ next to someone’s child it just validates that feeling,” said Judy Frey, a mother who has a child that fell under the cap.
Gavi Wolfe, of the ACLU, said the family cap was “put in place on the strength of racist rhetoric,” and Rebekah Gewirtz, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, said eliminating the cap is a matter of social justice.
“We are a very wealthy state and we should not have children going without in such a dramatic and traumatic way,” Gewirtz said.
Deborah Harris, staff attorney Mass Law Reform Institute, said she hopes that after years of growing a coalition in support of lifting the cap to well over 100 organizations, attention can soon be focused elsewhere.
“We hope we don’t have to grow any more because the Legislature will repeal the cap on kids and we can move on to other issues to help families,” Harris said.