Dateline Sacramento — State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City/Crenshaw District) told a press conference this morning she is “pleased” this is the year “we finally say goodbye” to “California’s worst law.”
The Maximum Family Grant rule for CalWORKS families ostensibly was intended to curb out-of-wedlock births by recipients. The rule states: “Maximum aid payment will not go up to include a child born to a family if any member of the family received cash aid for the 10 months in a row preceding the birth of a child.”
Last week, Gov. Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) agreed to include funds to repeal the rule in the state’s new budget.
Sen. Mitchell branded the rule “racist, classist, sexist policy whose time has passed.”
She said welfare restrictions, such as the Maximum Family Grant, are relics of a 1990s-era belief that women were deliberately having more babies just to rake in more benefits,” said Sen. Mitchell. “This contributed to the offensive and erroneous notion of the ‘welfare queen.’”
Sen. Mitchell noted that Republican former Gov. Pete Wilson was widely quoted and criticized, as defending his cuts to welfare by saying that affected families would simply ‘have less for a six-pack of beer.’
“This was a quote which demonstrated he both bought into and perpetuated the stereotype of welfare recipients using their grants inappropriately.”
Sen. Mitchell said that 20 years later, Maximum Family Grant has failed its stated goal of reducing children born out of wed-lock.
“Instead,” she said, “it has only driven poor women and their children deeper into poverty.
California is at its highest poverty rate since the mid-1990s, the highest rate of children living in poverty nationally and a generation of children whose opportunities were lost because of this shameful policy, Sen, Mitchell said.
“Costs to society are incalculable,” she said. “It seems Gov. Wilson’s math was a bit off.
“California is willfully and shamefully withholding aid to 134,900 of our poorest children, based on this sham of a policy.
“You’ve probably heard me say it before and I will say it again: Our annual budget is a values statement.
“For too long California children have been undervalued and given short shrift.
“Today I am proud to stand with the Legislative Women’s Caucus to announce that we have begun chipping away at the injustices of the past. The Maximum Family Grant is an antiquated policy based on a flawed hypothesis.
“The woman who would have a baby for an additional $130 a month does not exist.”
