Welfare Term Definitions

Definitions

States have adopted a variety of time limits that have very different effects. Some of these time limits establish a limit to the number of months that a family can receive benefits unless they meet a definition of hardship. Others do not terminate benefits so much as they impose additional obligations on recipients, such as work activity or cooperation with agency efforts to get them a job. In our summaries of state legislation, we are using three types of time limits:

Lifetime Limits specify a finite period for the receipt of benefits and provide no general basis for extensions beyond a limited definition of hardship.
Conditional Time Limits specify a finite period for the receipt of benefits, but then provide that recipients can continue to receive benefits if they meet certain conditions. The two most common conditions involve work activity—recipients must be engaged in specified work activities for a certain number of hours per week—and cooperation—recipients must cooperate in specified activities, such as job search or job training.
Periodic Time Limits specify a finite period of eligibility within a longer period, such as 24 months out of 48 months. Some periodic time limits provide general bases of exemption such as cooperation or work activity. Others provide extensions only in cases that meet a limited definition of hardship. In this classification, the first type of limits are considered conditional time limits. Only periodic time limits with no general basis of extension beyond hardship are classified here.

In addition to the different types of time limits, state statutes specify certain exemptions from application of the limits and certain bases for extending benefits after the time limit expires. We have summarized the exemptions and extensions in this report on time limits.