Opinion ID: 670690
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Structure and History.

Text: 22 For purposes of administering the program, AFDC recipients are grouped into assistance units, consisting of all individuals whose needs, income, and resources are considered in determining eligibility for, and the amount of, a[n assistance] payment.... 45 C.F.R. Sec. 205.40(b)(1) (1993). Neither the Social Security Act nor the corresponding regulations comprehensively define the composition of an AFDC assistance unit, but the Social Security Act permits states considerable latitude in deciding the composition of an AFDC assistance unit. The statute provides that 23 the State agency ... shall, in determining need, take into consideration any other income and resources of any child or relative claiming [AFDC], or of any other individual (living in the same home as such child and relative) whose needs the State determines should be considered in determining the need of the child or relative claiming such aid.... 24 42 U.S.C. Sec. 602(a)(7)(A) (1988). 25 As part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DEFRA), Pub.L. No. 98-369, 98 Stat. 494 (1984), Congress amended the Social Security Act to require that as a general rule, parents and siblings (as well as grandparents in the case of a minor parent) who live in the same household with an AFDC beneficiary be included in a single AFDC assistance unit. See DEFRA Sec. 2640(a), 98 Stat. 1145 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 602(a)(38) and (39) (Supp. II.1990)). 10 However, there is no statutory or regulatory provision expressly addressing the question whether, when a single relative caretaker receiving AFDC takes in minor dependent children for whom she is not legally responsible, the caretaker and those children should be deemed to constitute a single AFDC assistance unit. 26 The Caretaker Plaintiffs contend that when Congress specified in DEFRA that certain family members living in the same household unit must be considered a single assistance unit, see Sec. 602(a)(38) and (39), supra note 10, Congress could have chosen to add other non-legally responsible relatives. They argue that by applying the principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius, this court should infer that Congress meant to prohibit states from including other non-legally responsible relatives who live in the same household with an AFDC beneficiary in that beneficiary's unit. 27 The inference is not warranted. DEFRA's purpose in adding these provisions was to prevent families that apply for assistance from exclud[ing] from the filing unit certain family members who have income which might reduce the family benefit. S.Print No. 169, vol. I, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 980 (1984); see also H.Conf.R. No. 861, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 1407 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1445, 2095 (same); Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 592-93, 107 S.Ct. 3008, 3012-13, 97 L.Ed.2d 485 (1987) (same) (citing S.Print No. 169 and H.Conf.R. No. 861). It would be anomalous to conclude that, as part of an act designed to reduce budget outlays, Congress would prohibit states from employing the cost-saving measure of including members of an extended family who reside together in a single AFDC assistance unit. Indeed, under the rigid reading of the statute that the Caretaker Plaintiffs propose, the state would be precluded from including extended family members in a single assistance unit even if the state had first determined that the household functioned as a single economic unit. Such a determination is concededly permissible under the remedial order of the district court, however, and this aspect of the remedial order is not challenged by the Caretaker Plaintiffs' cross-appeal. 28