[Photo by Images Money]
In this latest installment of our “Dollars and Priorities” series on federal financing of child welfare, our columnists dive into the “look back.”
The look back refers to how the federal government reimburses states to pay for foster care through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. A state needs to establish that children in their care were removed from parents who earn less than the 1996 poverty standard – as codified in the Aid to Families with Dependent Child Program (AFDC) – in order to be eligible for federal dollars.
AFDC has been defunct for 20 years, replaced by the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program in a deal struck between the Clinton administration and a Republican-led Congress. Thus the poverty standard attached to IV-E has not been raised, meaning more and more children are ineligible for federal funds.
This, combined with reductions in overall foster care numbers, have meant that states are drawing down less and less money from the feds. This is one of several key factors in the finance reform debate.
[For more of this story, written by Daniel Heimpel, go to https://chronicleofsocialchang...verty-standard/17157]
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