Highlights of Fed Welfare Law

Saturday, Sept. 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

-Ends federal entitlement to welfare benefits, limits lifetime welfare assistance to five years and requires able-bodied adults to work after two years. Hardship exemptions allowed for up to 20 percent of each state's caseload.

-Replaces Aid to Families with Dependent Children with block grants totaling $16.4 billion to states, which would run their own programs, setting eligibility requirements and benefit levels.

-Continues Medicaid as an entitlement to families on welfare and continues coverage for one year for people who leave welfare and go to work.

-Tightens restrictions on children's eligibility for Supplemental Security Income disability benefits.

-Denies cash aid and food stamps to anyone convicted of felony drug charges. Pregnant women and adult in drug treatment would be exempted and family members could still get benefits. States could opt out of or modify the provision.

-Reduces funding for the Title XX social services block grant by 15 percent. States could still use this money, and other funds transferred to this grant from the welfare block grant, for non-cash, voucher assistance for children whose parents have exhausted their eligibility for assistance.

-Requires states to deduct at least one-quarter of the benefits for aid applicants who fail to help determine the fathers of their children.

-Prohibits legal immigrants who aren't citizens or U.S. military veterans or haven't worked and paid taxes in America for at least 10 years from any SSI or food stamp benefits. Also prohibits future legal immigrants from getting most federal benefits during their first five years in the country.

-Excludes illegal aliens from most federal means-tested benefits other than emergencies and cases of communicable disease.

-Makes students eligible for school lunch programs as long as they are legally eligible for free public education.

-Requires the spending of $14 billion over the next six years for child care, more than $3 billion above current funding.

-Allows childless nonworkers ages 18 to 50 to qualify for food stamps only for six months during a three-year period, and only for three consecutive months at a time.

-Freezes at $134 a month the standard deduction allowed for a person getting food stamps, meaning that much in monthly income wouldn't be counted against eligibility for the program.