## Facts

- New Jersey enacted the Work First New Jersey Act, including a “family cap” provision that fixed a family’s cash assistance at the level in effect when the family entered welfare and denied increases for additional children born more than ten months later.
- The provision did not eliminate all support for later-born children; families remained eligible for increased Medicaid and food stamps for those children.
- Angela B., a welfare recipient since 1987, received increased benefits for earlier children but received no additional cash assistance for a later child after implementation of a family-cap policy.
- Sojourner A., a welfare recipient since 1994, was informed that a later-born child would not increase cash benefits; she later terminated pregnancies and attributed the decision in part to the financial impact of the cap.
- Plaintiffs, representing a certified class of similarly affected welfare recipients, alleged the law was intended and operated to pressure poor women’s reproductive decisions and to discriminate against children based on the timing of their birth and parental welfare status.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to the agency and dismissed the complaint; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether limiting cash assistance for later-born children while a family receives welfare imposes an unconstitutional burden on reproductive privacy and procreative choice under the New Jersey Constitution.
2. Whether the provision violates equal protection under the New Jersey Constitution by treating children differently based on whether their family was receiving welfare at the time of birth.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed summary judgment for the Department of Human Services and upheld the family-cap provision.
- The Court held the cap did not impose an undue burden on reproductive decision-making because it did not directly regulate childbearing and any influence was indirect.
- The Court held the cap did not violate equal protection because it was rationally related to legitimate state interests, including encouraging work, promoting self-sufficiency, and reducing long-term welfare dependency.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory choice not to increase public cash benefits for the exercise of a protected choice is generally treated as a refusal to subsidize, not a direct infringement of the underlying right.
- Under New Jersey’s privacy jurisprudence, the relevant question is whether the state action creates an undue burden on procreative choice; indirect economic effects alone are insufficient absent coercion rising to constitutional significance.
- For equal protection challenges to welfare classifications not involving a suspect class or a direct deprivation of a fundamental right, a deferential standard applies; the classification is upheld if rationally related to legitimate governmental objectives.
- Distinctions based on timing and welfare status at birth may be permissible when connected to program goals such as work incentives and reduced welfare dependence, particularly where other forms of assistance remain available.

## Conclusion

The court upheld New Jersey’s welfare family-cap scheme, concluding it neither imposed an undue constitutional burden on reproductive freedom nor denied equal protection because it limited only incremental cash assistance and was rationally tied to legitimate welfare-to-work policy objectives.


Sojourner A. v. N.J. Dep’t of Hum. Servs., 828 A.2d 306 (N.J. 2003)