Posted on 01/14/2026 1:09:11 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
The Trump Administration has told states to stop the long-standing practice of taking Social Security benefit checks from some children and youth in foster care.
In a letter to governors, sent in early December, Alex Adams, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told states to end what he calls "the orphan tax."
Adams, who oversees federal child welfare policy, told states to quit taking Social Security survivor benefits from children in foster care. The monthly benefit is paid to a child whose mother or father has died but had worked and paid Social Security taxes.
States routinely take these checks from children and youth who are in foster care as reimbursement for the cost of a child's care — although, by law, states are required to provide foster care to all children who need it.
"There is no moral justification for why orphans should have to pay their own way," Adams told NPR. "They are not in foster care by any fault of their own. And they certainly should not be asked to pay their own bill."
Those Social Security benefits, Adams says, "might be the last resources that your deceased parents could leave behind for their children. To have those taken from that child and applied to state agency costs — that's why I call it an orphan tax. It's morally shocking to me and it's morally corrupt."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
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Pro-life ping *
Pro-life ping *
We're governed by scum.
So true. Puts so much in perspective.
Foster kids should get an escrow account of their own where the soc sec benefits are deposited, for the kid to start their savings with and have a little nest egg when foster care ends.
With NO access by foster parents.
This practice is probably one reason why some state bureaucracies are opposed to adoption and why they make little effort to get these kids placed.
Very sad if true. On a separate yet related note, even when Donald Trump was not in office, colleges flat out rejected Melania Trump's *PERSONAL* scholarship donations designated for students in the foster care system. That's how politicized they were...
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