Nancy and Dave are both 35 years old and married with a young daughter. Dave was recently in an accident, and is currently receiving $200 a month in State Disability Insurance. Nancy was able to make $800 a month working at a local bakery for 35 hours a week. Although this money helped, they were having trouble paying for food and clothing for their daughter. Dave called his human resources manager and asked if he knew of any other programs that could help them make ends meet. The HR manager suggested that they visit their local county welfare office and ask about CalWORKs.

They went to the office the next day, and spoke to an eligibility worker named Gene. They told her about their situation, and she nodded her head. “CalWORKs is a program for families that can’t financially support their children. There are a number of reasons we accept for not being able to provide this support. One of them is having at least one of the child’s caretakers have a disability, like you Dave,” Gene explained.

Nancy asked, “So we’ll be able to get help from the state?”

“First we have to see if you meet the requirements of the program. Fill out this one page form and we’ll review it to see if you’ll be eligible.” When they were finished, Gene looked over it. “Let’s see here. You seem to meet the resource requirements with no problem,” Gene began.

Nancy asked, “What are those?”

Gene replied, “Resources? They’re things you own. You have to have less than $2,000 of them, but your house and some of the value of your car don’t count. You have a 1986 Volvo, and I think it’s safe to assume that it’s worth less than $4,650. That’s the limit for the values of cars in CalWORKs. You don’t have any other resources, so it seems like you’re okay. I’ll have to do a quick calculation to see if you meet the income limits. Nancy, you said you make $800 a month, and Dave, you get $200 a month in SDI? So as a couple, you get $1,000 a month. We subtract $90 of that for each working family member, so you have $910 in countable income. Now we just compare that to the limit. Where do you live?”

“San Francisco,” Dave said. “Why does that matter?”

“Well, there are different limits for people who live in rural counties and people who live in urban counties. San Francisco is in Region I, which are urban counties.” Gene pulled out a chart and said, “The income limit for Region I for a family of 3 is for the program there is...$953.”

“So we’re under the income limit!” Nancy exclaimed. “Does that mean we get $953 a month? That would be great.”

“That would be great, but that’s not the amount you get. I know this is confusing, but after we determine that you’re eligible for the program, we use an entirely different calculation to figure out your benefit amount. First we have to figure out how much of your income to count,” Gene said.

Dave was getting frustrated. “But didn’t we just do that?”

“Yes, we did. But this is just the way it works,” Gene explained patiently. “We take your monthly disability based income and subtract $225. Dave, you get $200 a month in SDI, so we don’t count any of that. We take the $25 that are left from that calculation, and subtract them from any earned income.”

“So that’s my $800 minus $25, which is $775. Is that our countable income?” Nancy asked.

“Almost,” Gene replied. “We then take that amount and divide it by two. That’s $775 divided in half, which gives $387.50. That’s the amount of your income that we think you can use to pay for your family’s basic living expenses. We’ll subtract that from the maximum grant amount, which for a family living in Region I with 1 parent disabled is $723. Let’s see, $723 minus $387.50 is $335.50. That’s how much CalWORKs will give you in cash aid. If you want to look at this calculation more closely, I suggest you look this guide over when you get home,” Gene said as she handed them a sheet of paper.

“So that’s all? We just wait for the check to come in the mail?” Dave asked.

“The application usually takes a month or so to process. If you are approved, you’ll get money every month through direct deposit to a bank account or through an ATM-like card called Electronic Benefits Card. If you had any emergency needs, we could get you money sooner. Are you about to be evicted, or do you have any urgent financial problems?”

“No,” Nancy said, “I think we’ll be okay for the month.”

“Okay, good. Usually, people have to fulfill a work requirement, but since Dave is disabled, he will most likely be exempt. Nancy, since you’re already working 35 hours a week, you’ll probably be exempt as well. Normally, you would go through a job search program and then create a work plan. Even if you’re exempt, you might have other services, like child care and counseling, available. Which reminds me, if you’re accepted, you’ll get health coverage through Medi-Cal. You’ll receive instructions on what to do about your Welfare-to-Work requirement when you receive the notice that you’ve been approved. That notice will also go over when you should report changes to your situation. I’ll get this paper work started and please give me a call if you have any questions.”