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Publication Date: February 1999
Publisher: Center for Law and Social Policy
Author(s): Jodie Levin-Epstein
Research Area: Population and demographics; Social conditions
Type: Report
Coverage: Georgia
Abstract:
The family cap is intended to discourage childbearing among welfare recipients by limiting a family's cash grant. In order for the cap to achieve its intended effect, women receiving welfare need to abstain from sexual activity, contracept, or abort. If contraception is an integral part of helping women avoid the family cap, how can this best be accomplished? Should the two sides of the family cap coin — contraception and limited cash aid — be made explicit? Or, should the connection between family planning and family cap be as chancy as a toss of the coin? The experience of one state, Georgia, is detailed for readers in states with a family cap policy.