Family Responsibility Laws and State Politics: Empirical Patterns and Policy Implications

Abstract

Family responsibility laws constitute one of the many potential restrictions on health care and income maintenance benefits that are now receiving renewed interest. A 50-state comparison of previously adopted laws regarding Old Age Assistance programs shows that states using the most stringent provisions also had lower welfare effort. A subgroup of generally liberal states, however, coupled a family responsibility law with provision of full reimbursement if the relatives did not comply. Two major policy implications arise from these experiences. First, family responsibility laws seem likely to be associated more with efforts to save money than with attempts to redistribute money to other recipients. Second, possible alternatives that avoid the serious problems associated with previous uses of family responsibility laws, such as estate recovery provisions and more progressive general taxation, need to be considered.