INDOCHINESE REFUGEES Amounts authorized to States for cash assistance, medical assistance, social services, and State/local administration: Inception of program (May 1975) through September 30, 1977 1. Achieving or maintaining economic self-support to prevent, reduce, or eliminate dependency. 2. Achieving or maintaining self-sufficiency, including reduction or prevention of dependency. 3. Preventing or remedying neglect, abuse, or exploitation of children and adults unable to protect their own interests, or preserving, rehabilitating, or reuniting families. 4. Preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care by providing for community-based care, home-based care, or other forms of less intensive care. 5. Securing referral or admission for institutional care when other forms of care are not appropriate, or providing services to individuals in institutions. B. Examples of services: 1. Child day care services. 2. Protective services for children and adults. 3. Services to children and adults in foster care. 4. Home management services. 5. Family planning. 6. Information and referral. 7. Transportation. 8. Preparation and delivery of meals. 9. Health support services. 10. Services for the mentally retarded, blind, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped, alcoholics, and drug addicts. C. Services of major importance to Indochinese refugees. 1. Day care for children whose parents are in employment-training programs. 2. Transportation services to training programs. 3. Information and referral services. Social services.-Under Title XX of the Social Security Act, grants are made to States within two ceiling allocations. In the basic program there is a $2.5 billion ceiling limitation on Federal matching to provide social services to assist eligible persons to become or remain economically self-supporting and selfsufficient; to protect children and adults who cannot protect themselves from abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and to help families stay together; to prevent or reduce in appropriate institutional care by providing for community-based care, home-based care, or other forms of less intensive care; and to arrange for institutional placement, when appropriate, and for services to individuals in institutions. Within the basic program, grants are made to States based on matching rates of 75% for all services except family planning services which are matched at 90%. In addition, legislation, Public Law 94-401, dated September 7, 1976, authorized an additional $240 million earmarked for title XX day care services and grants to hire welfare recipients in jobs related to the provision of child care services$40 million for the TQ and $200 million for 1977. These funds are used to match expenditures in the transition quarter at the rate of 75% for provision of child day care services and 100% for grants to hire welfare recipients. In 1977, the 100% rate applies to both the provision of child day care services and for grants to hire welfare recipients. Title XX of the Social Security Act was signed into law on January 4, 1975. The effective program date was October 1, 1975. Title XX legislates that citizens of the State be provided the opportunity to actively participate in the development of the social services program to be carried out by the State. There must be a planning process which includes citizen representation and involvement. Also a period of time must be provided during which the public may review and submit comments regarding the proposed program. A State's plan for the provision of social services under Title XX is not subject to approval by the Federal government. The plan is a product of the cooperative effort of the State and its citizens. Title XX does require, however, that at least one service provided be directed to each of the five goals specified in the law. In addition the law requires that at least three services be provided for SSI recipients and family planning services must be provided to recipients of AFDC. While the social services program is to be in effect in every political subdivision, services to be provided may differ in different areas within the State based on the needs of the locality or area. Services may be provided to persons who receive financial assistance under AFDC, persons whose needs were taken into account in determining the needs of AFDC recipients, persons who receive financial assistance under SSI or State Supplementary payments and persons whose gross monthly income does not exceed 115% of the State's median income of a family of four adjusted for size of family. Fees may be charged for services but such fees must be reasonably related to the individual or family income. While the general characteristics of a family receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children have been generally known for some time, there has been little effort to compare the typical AFDC family with the typical U.S. family. This comparison* may produce some surprises for those who thought that AFDC families have much larger numbers of children than the national average and that most of them are illegitimate. In 1973, when the most recent study of AFDC families Iwas made, there were about 7.5 million children in three million families receiving just under $600 million in AFDC payments monthly. (By February of this year there were 8.1 million children in 3.6 million families receiving $813 million in monthly payments.) The AFDC program is designed to provide financial assistance to needy families with children. One parent must be either deceased, incapacitated, absent from the home, or, in about half the States, present but unemployed. In addition to money, AFDC families are eligible for medical services, social services and food programs. The AFDC families comprise 10 percent of the families (with children) in the U.S. and 12 percent of the children. Of the 4.3 million families (with children) in the general population headed by a woman, 2.25 million are AFDC families. To put it another way, three-fourths of AFDC families are headed by a woman. *All comparisons in this article are based on the 1973 study of AFDC families and a survey by the Bureau of the Census (March 1973). Mr. Oberheu is a statistician in SRS' National Center for Social Statistics, Office of Information Systems. Nearly half of the AFDC mothers are full-time homemakers with pre-school children. Most of the remaining mothers who are not working are in training, attending school or incapacitated for employment. Very few of the children receiving support are without the care of their natural or adoptive mother. Usually mothers have never married, are divorced, separated or are widowed. The mother is deceased or absent from the home in only about one in 20 families. In these few instances care is most likely provided by the grandmother. school age in more than half the families. As expected, this group has relatively fewer working mothers and would be expected to have a greater demand for child care services. The youngest child is 12 or more in only one of seven AFDC families. If for no other reason, these families will be leaving the AFDC rolls during the next few years because the children will exceed the age for eligibility. At the time of the study the typical AFDC case was on the rolls for about two years. The AFDC family In the typical AFDC family there are between three and four recipients ( a mean of 3.6), one of whom is an adult; eight out of 10 families have one adult. When there is no adult in a family, the average number of children is 2; with one adult it is 2.6 children; with two adults it is 3.3 children. When there are two adults in an AFDC family, the second adult is usually the father who is incapacitated or unemployed. AFDC families without adults frequently have a mother who has remarried. The stepfather is supporting his wife but is not legally responsible to support the children. In many instances, the AFDC assistance group is composed of the entire household. About five percent of the households have a second assistance group. In about a third of the households, however, there are those who do vide AFDC to children over the age of 17, 42 States make provision for children attending school through the age of 20. Nearly 10 percent of families have children between 18 to 20 who are not receiving assistance because they do not attend school regularly. One out of every eight families with some children not receiving assistance have children over the 17-year age limit. Of all the AFDC families in the U.S. five percent include a stepfather, 14 percent grandparents, 13 percent not receive assistance for one reason or another. Most of these are brothers and sisters, including half-brothers, half-sisters, stepbrothers or stepsisters of the children receiving benefits. Of the families with children who are not included in the assistance group studied, one in four have children in another assistance group. While some States do not pro Employment Status of Women Heading Families There is a striking difference between the employ ment status of the woman who heads the average family and the woman heading the AFDC family. The unemployment rate of the AFDC family head is three times that of the average family. Of the AFDC family heads not in the labor force, 46.9 percent are full-time homemakers caring for pre-school children. Others are not in the labor force because they are in training, incapacitated or are not looking for a job. other relatives and three percent nonrelatives. One-third of households with some persons not receiving AFDC assistance in the group studied receive either AFDC in another group, Supplemental Security Income because of blindness, another form of disability, or age, or assistance provided from State or local funds. cent of the children are in correctional institutions. Even in many families where the father is present, he is not the natural father of some of the children. In addition, nearly a third of the children who are not supported by the father were conceived out of wedlock. For this reason, two areas of recent emphasis have been family planning services and obtaining support from absent parents. Fifteen percent of the children live with their father. Of these, about two-thirds have incapacitated fathers; a third of them live in States that provide assistance when the father is unemployed. The fathers of four percent of the children are deceased. In the past, half of the absent fathers could not be located, making it impossible to obtain their support. A new Federal program to locate absent fathers is improving child support collections. The median age of fathers in the home is 41.9 years, relatively older than the mothers. It is likely the relatively older mothers are part of the two-parent households. Barely one percent of the fathers are under 20 and an additional 21 percent are under 30. More than half the AFDC fathers living at home are incapacitated (54 percent) and others are reported unable to find work (28 percent). Slightly more than 10 percent are employed either full or part time, although not at a level at which they could fully support their families. More than two-thirds of the fathers who are unemployed have been so for more than a year. The usual occupation of 60 percent of them is classified as blue collar worker. A majority of these are nonfarm laborers. Reprints of this article are available free of charge in greater quantities by writing the Editor. In eight percent of AFDC families the father is incapaci- quantities of 50 or less. Arrangements can be made for tated; in four percent he is unemployed; fathers of two per |