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California sexual and reproductive health organizations were dismayed to find that Gov. Jerry Brown’s $170.7 billion budget proposal includes the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule, which advocates say penalizes children and pushes poor families deeper into poverty.
Myra Duran, policy manager at California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ), told RH Reality Check the rule is racist, sexist, and classist.
The MFG rule is an element of CalWORKs, California’s version of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that provides cash support to low-income expectant and recent mothers. The MFG rule was included in 1994 with the goal of coercing poor mothers, primarily women of color, into having fewer children by barring families who are already receiving CalWORKs assistance from obtaining $122 in additional support for any new child they may have.
In other words, the amount a family receives in assistance remains unchanged if they have additional children.
California is one of 15 states with rules, also known as “family caps,” that penalize low-income families for having children. Family caps were designed to discourage low-income mothers from having...