The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has issued a new report that shows that if the Governor's proposal to eliminate CalWORKs is approved, that 190,000 children would be driven into deep poverty. A family is considered to live in "deep poverty" when their income is below 50% of the federal poverty level. The poverty level for a family of three is $18,130 a year so deep poverty families have earning at or below about $9,000 a year.

CBPP, which analyzes federal and state policy for low income families, estimates that 190,000 additional children would fall into deep poverty. They would be added to the current estimate of 450,000 children already living in deep poverty. Additionally, 170,000 children would be pushed below 75 percent of the poverty line and 140,000 children would be pushed below 100 percent of the poverty line. See the attachment for more specifics on the impacts.

WCLP also estimates that if the CalWORKs is eliminated there would also be the following impacts:

• About 540,000 families would lose the cash aid they rely on to keep their children sheltered and with the basic necessities.
• More than 1 million children would lose all cash aid from CalWORKs.

• 130,000 adults would be dropped from welfare to work activities and lose access to child care, education and services.

• County General Assistance costs would increase by $2.5 billion if all CalWORKs families subsequently applied for and received the average GA “family” grant of $387 a month.

• The California economy would lose $3.7 billion in federal TANF funds annually. The state would not be able to divert TANF funds for state programs that used to operate on General Funds causing a GF impact in the tens of millions.