BILL REQ. #:  H-1197.1 

Read first time 02/06/13.   Referred to Committee on Early Learning & Human Services.

     AN ACT Relating to exemptions from the five-year time limit for recipients of the temporary assistance for needy families program; and amending RCW 74.08A.010.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 74.08A.010 and 2011 1st sp.s. c 42 s 6 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) A family that includes an adult who has received temporary assistance for needy families for sixty months after July 27, 1997, shall be ineligible for further temporary assistance for needy families assistance.
     (2) For the purposes of applying the rules of this section, the department shall count any month in which an adult family member received a temporary assistance for needy families cash assistance grant unless the assistance was provided when the adult family member was a minor child and not the head of the household or married to the head of the household.
     (3) The department shall adopt regulations to apply the sixty-month time limit to households in which a parent is in the home and ineligible for temporary assistance for needy families. Any regulations shall be consistent with federal funding requirements.
     (4) The department shall refer recipients who require specialized assistance to appropriate department programs, crime victims' programs through the department of commerce, or the crime victims' compensation program of the department of labor and industries.
     (5)(a) The department may exempt a recipient and the recipient's family from the application of subsection (1) of this section by reason of hardship or if the recipient meets the family violence options of section 402(A)(7) of Title IVA of the federal social security act as amended by P.L. 104-193.
     (b) Exemptions under the family violence options must include situations where imposing the sixty-month limit on a recipient or his or her family members would unfairly penalize an individual who has experienced past family violence which disrupted the recipient's ability to obtain and keep employment or increase the recipient's wage earning potential over time.
     (c) Hardship exemptions must include, but not be limited to, the following in order of priority:
     (i) The recipient receives supplemental security income or social security disability, the recipient has an open child welfare case and it is the recipient's first child welfare case, the recipient meets the family violence criteria, or the recipient is a caretaker relative and is over fifty-five years of age;
     (ii) The family is residing in a county with an unemployment rate of six percent or more;
     (iii) A parent has a temporary mental or physical incapacity;
     (iv) A parent is working in unsubsidized employment for more than twenty hours per week; or
     (v) A parent is functionally illiterate.
     (6) Policies related to circumstances under which a recipient will be exempted from the application of subsection (1) or (3) of this section shall treat adults receiving benefits on their own behalf, and parents receiving benefits on behalf of their child similarly, unless required otherwise under federal law.
     (((6))) (7) The department shall not exempt a recipient and his or her family from the application of subsection (1) or (3) of this section until after the recipient has received fifty-two months of assistance under this chapter.
     (((7))) (8) Beginning on October 31, 2005, the department shall provide transitional food stamp assistance for a period of five months to a household that ceases to receive temporary assistance for needy families assistance and is not in sanction status. If necessary, the department shall extend the household's food stamp certification until the end of the transition period.