Page 6

2 Families must meet income and asset tests and children must be deprived of parental support and care due to the incapacity, death, or absence of a parent. If both parents live in the home, the children may also be considered deprived when the principal wage earner is either unemployed or underemployed. For purposes of CalWORKs, a ‘family’ is a group of related adults and children living in the same home, whose income and resources are considered when determining eligibility for benefits. A ‘family’ may consist of a Pregnant Person Only (PPO), meaning a person who is in any stage of their pregnancy, who has no other eligible children living in the home, and whose pregnancy has been verified. PPO applicants may initially satisfy the pregnancy verification requirement by means of a sworn statement or verbal attestation. Applicants who provide a sworn statement or verbal attestation are required to provide medical verification of pregnancy within 30 working days following submittal of the sworn statement/verbal attestation. Family members eligible to receive assistance at the time of application, subject to time limits and program requirements, are considered the Assistance Unit (AU). An AU is defined as a group of related persons living in the home who have been determined eligible for CalWORKs and for whom cash assistance has been authorized. A PPO age 19 or older is eligible to receive assistance at any stage during their pregnancy. PPO teens under the age of 19 and participating in the Cal-Learn Program, which is designed to encourage pregnant and parenting teens to return to and/or stay in high school or its equivalent, are eligible upon verification of pregnancy. Counties may also elect to provide CalWORKs employment services to non- custodial parents (NCPs) using existing funds from their SA and the Expanded Subsidized Employment allocation. An NCP is a parent of a minor child who lives in the same state as the minor child but does not reside in the same household as the minor child (45 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) section 260.30). For NCPs to be eligible for CalWORKs WTW employment services, the NCP must have established legal parentage for a child who is: 1) receiving aid in a CalWORKs AU; or 2) ineligible for aid (e.g., due to receipt of Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment [SSI/SSP]) and living with a parent or caretaker receiving CalWORKs assistance. With the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency declaration, CalWORKs adopted flexibilities designed to keep county welfare department operations and the public safe while still addressing the needs of our families. These flexibilities were initially enacted through Executive Orders signed by the Governor of California and were later made permanent, effective July 1, 2021: 1. An applicant may complete the affirmation statement on the SOF by means of an oral attestation in lieu of a written attestation when the eligibility interview is completed telephonically and the county welfare department does not have the capability of capturing the telephonic signature. County eligibility staff may approve the application if the family is otherwise eligible and must document in the case file that an oral attestation by the applicant was made. The county must send the completed SOF to the applicant for review and signature. The applicant must return the signed SOF to the county welfare department within 30 days for assistance to continue.