ASSEMBLY, No. 1303

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel

PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 1996 SESSION

By Assemblyman BROWN

An Act concerning benefits provided under the program of aid to families with dependent children and repealing P.L.1991, c.526.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. P.L.1991, c.526 (C.44:10-3.5 et seq.) is repealed.

    2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

    This bill repeals P.L.1991, c.526 (Assembly Bill No. 4703 1R of 1991). This law denies a recipient of aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) benefits the additional monthly cash grant for which that recipient would have qualified as a result of the birth of a child prior to the enactment of P.L.1991, c.526.

    It should be noted that no other state in the country has enacted such a law to date, and that there is no empirical evidence to support the proposition that an AFDC recipient would have an additional child merely to receive an extra $64 a month in AFDC cash benefits. (This is the increase in the monthly grant for an AFDC-eligible family with three or more persons which has an additional child.) In fact, it has been reported that 72% of AFDC-eligible families have no more than two children, and that families with six or more children comprise less than one percent of AFDC recipients.

    In addition, the new law discriminates against women, because it is the mother of a new child who in almost all instances will be forced to support the child without the benefit of the additional AFDC monthly grant, while the father who is absent from the household is unaffected by the restriction on the amount of the AFDC grant. Moreover, this law punishes a child for the actions of the parent, for which the child is not responsible.

    The practical effect of this new law will be to force an AFDC-recipient mother who becomes pregnant while enrolled in the program to decide between two tragic and unjust alternatives, i.e., to have an abortion, or attempt to feed, clothe and house her new child without the benefit of a very modest increase in her AFDC monthly grant. As it is, families enrolled in the AFDC program are already receiving benefits which have been sharply eroded by inflation, because these grants have only been increased one time in the last decade (by five percent in 1987).

Repeals P.L.1991, c.526 concerning denial of AFDC benefits for certain children.