Push to revisit comes 10 years after passage of law that made Kansas’ program one the most restrictive

TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly wants the Legislature to revisit the 2015 policy that placed restrictions on access to the state’s cash assistance program and made Kansas’ program one of the trickiest to access in the country.

Kelly said she intends to work with lawmakers in the upcoming 2025 session to “revamp” the Hope, Opportunity and Prosperity for Everyone, or HOPE, act, which overhauled eligibility requirements for cash assistance.

Legislative involvement in regulating Kansas’ cash assistance program has been limited since 2016 when legislators further reduced the maximum amount of time a person can participate in the program in their lifetime in Kansas from three to two years, but recent examination of the act’s downstream effects has shown strain on the foster care system. Officials fear that families are falling through the cracks.

“There are a number of things that are in that bill that really harmed our families,” Kelly, a Democrat, told Kansas Reflector on Sept. 26.

Passed during Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration, the HOPE Act was touted as a way to address welfare fraud, get people back to work and minimize generational dependency on government benefits.

The federal government’s maximum allowance for cash assistance program participation is up to five years in a lifetime. Before the HOPE Act, Kansas’ ceiling was 48 months, but the 2015 legislation reduced it to 36 months, and then 24 months in 2015. Additional requirements were baked into both iterations of the HOPE Act, including limits on the amount of money someone could withdraw from an ATM with their cash assistance card, a ban on participation for repeat drug offenders, restrictions on where cash assistance can be spent and work requirements.

“People are always talking about others who need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” Kelly said.“They gotta have bootstraps to pull.”

The federal government funds cash assistance programs through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program. Kansas’ program is administered by the state’s Department for Children and Families. In 2022, Kansas spent less than 7% of its $161 million in TANF allocations on basic assistance, ranking the state near the bottom of spenders in the United States. A recent state audit found that spending on cash assistance programs in Kansas has decreased by nearly 40% in the past 14 years, while spending on foster care prevention increased by $25 million during the same time period.

The audit also found that the purchasing power of Kansas’ cash assistance dollars, which participants access through EBT cards, has decreased by 50% since the program’s inception in 1996.

Research has shown that generous access to benefits like cash assistance programs benefits children and families, according to Donna Ginther, a research economist and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas. Her analysis of public policy found that limiting cash assistance and food assistance produces negative long-term effects, including poor health, educational attainment and employment outcomes.

Kansas is among the most restrictive of U.S. states and territories, she said.

Between Oct. 2022 and Sept. 2023, Kansas ranked above only Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and North Dakota in the number of children served through cash assistance. The other three have fractions of Kansas’ population.

These restrictions accompany a decrease in participation among Kansans in the state’s food assistance program, which is funded through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. Legislators have been much more involved in clamping down on food assistance in recent years, overriding a veto in 2022 to mandate Kansans work a job for 30 hours a week or enroll in a job training program to receive the benefit.

Both food assistance and cash assistance are just two pieces of the patchwork that makes up Kansas’ social safety net.

“I don’t think our approach to the social safety net helps people get back on their feet,” Ginther said, “because we just discourage anybody from getting these benefits.”

Ginther and her co-researcher’s research showed “associations between state policies that limit access to TANF and increases in child maltreatment and foster care placements,” according to a December 2022 report.

Raising the ceiling back to 48 months and simplifying the application process so that an application for one program allows an individual or family to simultaneously apply to other programs could be a remedy, Ginther said.

In 2015, more than 13,700 Kansans received cash assistance, and more than 10,300 of those recipients were children, according to federal data. By 2018, caseloads decreased to roughly 4,200 recipients, more than 2,500 of which were children. In fiscal year 2023, average caseloads were at nearly 2,800 recipients, of which nearly 1,500 were children.

Despite the decrease in caseloads, the need for assistance remains, said Jessica Herrera Russell, spokeswoman for Kansas Action for Children, a statewide advocacy group.

Tens of thousands of Kansans apply for cash assistance each year. In the most recent fiscal year, more than 21,000 people applied to the program, according to DCF data. In fiscal year 2015, more than 24,000 people applied. In fiscal year 2017, the first year during which both versions of the HOPE Act were in effect, more than 1,200 applications were denied assistance because the applicants had exceeded the state’s maximum time limit, and nearly 600 people had cases closed that year because they reached their limit.

The advocacy group is in favor of easing restrictions on access to programs like cash assistance, which will require deliberate engagement with lawmakers, Herrera Russell said.

A handful of legislators who voted in favor of the HOPE Act remain in office, as do those who voted against it. Kelly was a state senator in 2015 and 2016 and voted against both iterations of the act.

House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, who voted in favor of both iterations of the act and has prodded Kelly in recent years to adhere to its rules, said “absolutely not” to revisiting the act in 2025.

“Those welfare reforms have worked,” he said. “The work requirement literally got people back to work — almost immediately.”

Unemployment rates in Kansas have declined overall since 2009, except during 2020 when rates reached all-time highs, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Kansas Department of Labor. However, unemployment rates have increased slightly since 2023, according to labor department data.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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