What branch of government is responsible for deciding who can receive welfare?

This question highlights an underappreciated area of complexity with respect to how the U.S. federal government works. The U.S. Congress creates the legislation that funds welfare, and that legislation sets forth the basic requirements for eligibility. However, both federal and state regulations, as well as state legislation, also are involved with determining who receives welfare, and a state agency makes the direct decision on which applicants receive assistance.

Current federal welfare law is an example of Congress’s power of the purse. Congress authorizes federal spending for the welfare system. Within the legislation authorizing the spending are rules that recipients of the funds, the states, must follow if they are to receive the funding for their citizens. Thus, Congress sets the basic rules for who may receive welfare, but does not make any individual decisions on who receives benefits.

Since Congress cannot send funding for welfare programs to the states directly, the funding has to go through the executive branch of the federal government via the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The U.S. HHS creates regulations on how the funding is to be distributed, how states must administer the funding, how states must hear appeals to denials of assistance, etc. The regulations created by the U.S. HSS must have the minimum requirements set out by the funding legislation, but there is some latitude for the agency to determine how to regulate and enforce those minimums. These regulations are found in the Code of Federal Regulations, and states that received funding for welfare must follow these regulations in administering their welfare systems.

In addition to federal legislation and the federal regulations, states must enact state legislation to create, regulate and administer their own agencies that receive federal funding for welfare. In order to receive the federal funding, the state legislation must mirror the basic requirements for welfare assistance eligibility as set by Congress. The state may expand on those basics if the state has its own funding to add to the federal funding, but a state may not go below the minimum federal standards.

Each state has its own agency akin to the U.S. HHS. It is the state agency that has the ability to give assistance to the people, and to do so, the state agency creates state regulations. These state regulations determine how both federal and state funding for welfare is administered in that state, including the specific rules on who receives welfare benefits. These regulations must track state law, which must track federal law, and they must also track the federal regulations. If they do not, then the agency will not receive federal funding for welfare.  

Since the state HHS-type agency is the only entity that can actually disperse the assistance to the citizens, the state agency decides which particular applicants are eligible to receive assistance. However, as discussed above, the state agency must follow its own regulations, state law, the federal regulations, and the federal code in making its decisions. And while there is some variability from state to state, especially with regard to state funding that goes beyond the basics set by the federal government, any state that receives federal welfare funding must follow at least the basic requirements of eligibility set forth in the funding legislation created by the U.S. Congress.

So, while the question may seem simple, it actually encompasses a great deal of complexity as several different entities have a hand in making the rules for who is eligible to receive welfare assistance, even though a state agency makes the decision on which applicants are eligible.