Economic Security

PROVEN PROGRAMS HELP FAMILIES ON THE EDGE. When families are financially secure, their children experience stability and can grow with the support they need to thrive. For too long, Kansas parents have had to navigate a system that works against them — child care that is sparse and unaffordable; rising housing, medical care, and grocery costs; and stagnant wages.

These factors lead to thousands of Kansas parents struggling to ensure their kids are cared for while at work, feed their families, provide a safe home, and access necessary health care.

Several programs exist to help parents make ends meet. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) increases tax fairness, improves families’ mental and physical health, and increases employment. SNAP (called food assistance in Kansas) lifts tens of thousands of Kansans out of poverty each year. Access to concrete supports, including both SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), are correlated with decreased instances of child neglect and interaction with the child welfare system. WIC participation leads to healthier outcomes for parents, infants, and children.

These programs support those families who need them, help them transition into financial stability and self-sufficiency, and lead to a brighter future for all Kansas kids.

Harmful Policy Still Blocks Crucial Support to Kansas Families

Unfortunately, Kansas limits access to many of these programs in a way that worsens outcomes for struggling families. For example, the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit recently found that “TANF rules like those in Kansas lead to mostly negative program outcomes for TANF families.”

Harmful legislation in 2015 and 2016, misleadingly called the HOPE Act, has prevented access to support and anti-poverty programs for Kansas children and families who need help the most. KAC and our partners have worked hard to make it easier for struggling Kansans to access programs that are proven to lift people out of poverty and temporarily help those experiencing hardships. Instead of working alongside us, the Legislature has continued to make it even harder for poor, working Kansans to put food on their tables.

Kansas is not doing all that it can to give children and families the support they need to grow up healthy and thrive, and leaders are leaving millions of federal dollars unspent in the process. Kansas has some of the most restrictive food assistance rules in the country, which are punitive to people with more than one drug felony, single parents, and working adults with unstable, unpredictable schedules. Unfortunately, the Legislature has doubled down on some of these ineffective, harmful restrictions in recent years by expanding work reporting requirements to Kansans in their 50s who struggle to make ends meet.

Kansas spends significantly less than the national average of its TANF dollars on helping families living on low wages who qualify through direct assistance, work activities, and child care. Instead, most of our TANF dollars go to activities that do not directly contribute to TANF’s core purpose of reducing poverty.

Kansas excludes eligible U.S. citizen children from receiving EITC benefits if they are in a “mixed-status” household. The Kansas Legislature has also not increased the state EITC, which could improve tax fairness and multiply the credit’s benefits for children, families, and communities.

Kansas has still not raised its minimum wage above the federal level of $7.25 per hour, and lawmakers have implemented policy that prevents cities and counties from requiring employers to pay a living wage. Low-wage workers often turn to safety net programs, like food assistance and TANF, to help them get through the month. Kansas makes it difficult to access these crucial safety net programs while also allowing employers to pay poverty wages, leaving thousands of Kansans stuck in a cycle of financial instability.

Kansas has done little to address skyrocketing rents and housing prices and has even created barriers to addressing the housing crisis. Kansas is one of just a handful of states that bans inclusionary zoning, keeping cities from requiring developers to include affordable units in their developments. Kansas also prohibits cities from implementing caps on excessive rent increases.

Policy Solutions

To improve the well-being of all Kansas families, lawmakers must focus on policies that put more money into Kansans’ pockets. From food to housing to wages, Kansas has made life more difficult for families. Ensuring more Kansans facing often-temporary hardships can keep their families afloat while they regain stability is good for all Kansas communities.

The Kansas Legislature should:

• Remove barriers to TANF that currently harm those who need it most. Kansas should increase the amount of time a family can be eligible from two years to the federal rule of five years, as well as remove punitive and counterproductive work reporting requirements.

• Increase access to the food assistance program by removing the ban on Kansans with more than one drug felony, remove the requirement that single parents open a child support case against their children’s non-custodial parent, reverse inflexible and punitive work and training reporting requirements for adults without dependents, and allow the Department for Children and Families to request waivers of the three-month time limit for adults without dependents in times of very high unemployment.

• Raise the state minimum wage to a level considered to be a “livable wage,” and tie annual minimum wage increases to inflation, like three of our neighbors (Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado) have done. Increasing wages provides families with more money for things like food, housing, health care, transportation, and education.

• Address the housing affordability crisis.

  • Since rising property taxes are passed on to tenants, reinstating the Homestead Property Tax Refund for renters, who are much more likely to be cost-burdened than homeowners, would ease the burden of rising rents.

  • Repealing the inclusionary zoning preemption would give cities and counties the authority to require developers to include affordable units in new housing development projects.

  • Renters and homeowners alike would be more secure if an Affordable Housing Trust Fund were created to fund things like rental and property tax assistance, home repair, and shared equity housing development.