CalWORKs: welfare-to-work activities: hours.

Existing law requires each county to provide cash assistance and other social services to needy families through the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program using federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant program, state, and county funds. Existing law requires families to be grouped into assistance units for purposes of determining eligibility and computing the amount of CalWORKs aid to be paid. Existing law establishes a 48-month lifetime limit of CalWORKs benefits for eligible adults, as specified. Under existing law, a recipient of CalWORKs is required to participate in certain welfare-to-work activities for a specified number of hours each week as a condition of eligibility for aid for 24 cumulative months, as specified, and to meet other federal requirements afterwards, as specified. Existing law exempts a person with a disability, as specified, from participation in welfare-to-work activities. This bill would, commencing July 1, 2018, recast these provisions and would clarify that an adult in an assistance unit that includes 2 adults, one of whom is disabled, is required to participate in welfare-to-work activities for the same number of hours per week as an adult in an assistance unit that includes only one adult. The bill would also provide that the hour requirement is an average of at least 20 hours per week during the month for a pregnant woman receiving CalWORKs benefits during the above-described 24 months, and an average of at least 30 hours per week during the month after the 24 months, if the assistance unit consists only of that pregnant woman. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services to issue an all-county letter or similar instructions, and to adopt regulations to implement the provisions of the bill no later than July 1, 2020. Existing law continuously appropriates moneys from the General Fund to defray a portion of county costs under the CalWORKs program. This bill would instead provide that the continuous appropriation would not be made for purposes of implementing the bill.