Social Security Benefits Could Be Changed for Thousands of Children

Lawmakers in California are working to help foster children access much-needed Social Security benefits that are being absorbed by the state.

According to a 2021 report by the Marshall Project, about 10 percent of foster children throughout the country are entitled to Social Security benefits, either because their parents have died or because they have a physical or mental disability.

AB 2906, a new bill in California that was referred to the state Assembly's Appropriations Committee after being introduced in February, could see access to Social Security benefits increased for foster children. Under current rules, the State Department of Social Services is permitted to use Social Security survivors' benefits and Supplemental Security Income to pay for or reimburse the cost of a foster child's care and supervision.

According to the bill's text, the money goes to county placing agencies. However, the new legislation would require such agencies to, among other things, ensure that a foster child's federal Social Security survivors' benefits "are not used to pay for, or to reimburse, the placing agency for any costs of the child's care and supervision." If passed, the bill would come into effect on January 1, 2025.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan—who introduced the bill, which was co-authored by Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson—said counties across California were pocketing millions of dollars in Social Security benefits and putting the money in general funds.

"These are benefits that belong to these young people," Bryan told KCRA 3, a news outlet in Sacramento. "We are stealing those benefits but we've treated it as a revenue stream for decades."

Newsweek has contacted Bryan and California's Department of Social Services for comment via email outside normal working hours.

The Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego told CBS 8 that states across the U.S. must act to protect the benefits of some of the nation's most vulnerable children. California is not the only state to employ the practice.

"Too many of these children, who are our children, end up homeless and terrified on their 18th birthday, too many of them end up trafficked, too few of them go to college," said Ed Howard, the senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute. "A consequence of the veto, is that California still permits counties to steal from abused and neglected children and use it to their own benefit."

In a report, the institute said the "vast majority" of foster children who can claim Social Security benefits would "never see a dollar of their money."

"Most foster care agencies routinely screen and apply for benefits on behalf of youth," the institute said. "They then routinely request to have the benefit checks sent directly to them. After receiving the child's check, foster care agencies almost uniformly intercept the full amount of the check to reimburse themselves for that child's foster care."