Senate Passes Measure Repealing Max Grant Rule

The California Senate has approved a measure that would repeal a rule limiting when families can receive additional state aid. 

The Maximum Family Grant rule limits the circumstances under which a family can receive cash assistance for a new baby. Additional aid is generally denied if the family has received assistance continuously for ten months before the birth of a child.

Democratic Senator Holly Mitchell authored the bill.

"What this bill would be to stop punishing poor children for having the misfortune of being born too close to their sibling," she says. "And it would prohibit the state from inserting itself into the private reproductive and medical decisions of families who are poor and seeking temporary, basic assistance to help their children."

Repealing the rule would cost the state about $200 million a year. Both the Senate and Assembly have indicated they will include the repeal in their budgets. But the rule change is not in Gov. Jerry Brown's version of the budget.

The measure now moves to the Assembly.