Louisianans can enthusiastically applaud Governor Landry’s recent initiatives to help ensure the well-being of Louisiana’s children in foster care by supporting DCFS’s work to recruit sufficient foster families and ordering DCFS to quit taking the Social Security Survivor Benefits of children in foster care.
On February 24, 2026, Governor Landry signed the Proclamation, A Home for Every Child, and issued an Executive Order to protect foster youth’s earned Social Security survivor benefits.
Certainly, everyone is aware of the crisis Louisiana faces with too few foster homes for the number of children in foster care. Governor Landry’s proclamation, A Home for Every Child, is an important statement of support.
DCFS To Quit Taking Survivor Benefits of Children in Foster Care
The Executive Order may have surprised those who are unaware that Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services collects as state revenue the federal Social Security survivor benefits of foster children whose parents have died. These survivor benefits are monthly payments made to children of deceased parents who paid into Social Security during their lifetime. Generally, children are eligible to receive Survivor Benefits until their 18th birthday (or up to 19 if they are in high school).
Governor Landry’s Executive Order protecting children’s Social Security survivor benefits is long overdue in Louisiana. It will end DCFS’ capture of foster children’s federal benefits.
The National Absconding
States have taken survivor benefits from children in foster care since the late 1990s. In a 2003 case between Washington State and a foster child, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the practice was not unlawful. Later, with the support of child advocates, Congress attempted to change the related federal laws. The 114th Congress (2015-2016) failed to pass H.R.5737 – Protecting Foster Youth Resources to Promote Self-Sufficiency Act, a bill that would have ended the practice across the nation.
On April 22, 2021, The Marshall Project and NPR, reporting on the practice in On All Things Considered, shared that in at least 36 states and Washington, D.C., state foster care agencies were searching their case files to find foster children eligible for federal survivor or dependent benefits, and then applying to Social Security to become each child’s financial representative. Once approved, child welfare agencies often kept the money, frequently without notifying the children, their loved ones, or attorneys of what they had done to take the children’s survivor benefits.
These are real benefits for children whose parents have died. According to an April 7, 2024 report, Foster children deprived of benefits: How a loophole affects the most vulnerable, by CBS News, “The Social Security Administration estimates that $174 million in benefits a year are at stake. But (Amy) Harfeld believes the number is actually higher. States are required by federal law to report back to the Agency how much of these benefits they take each year, but only about a dozen comply.” (The CBS News report includes the story of Ian Marks, who grew up in New Orleans and was in foster care for eight years.)
Amy Harfeld is the national policy director for the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law. In its Toolkit for State Legislators, the Children’s Advocacy Institute reports that the average benefit accruing to each impacted foster child is $16,031.
To receive that amount at 18, when they age out of foster care, could be positively life-changing for a child who is suddenly dropped out of custody and put on the street. Fortunately, the obvious injustice of this revenue grab is catching the attention of state legislatures and governors. Now, states are working to end the practice. That is what Governor Landry’s Executive Order does.
If you have been in foster care and should have received survivor benefits, you can learn how to collect what is yours by exploring this information from The Marshall Project: Were You Ever in Foster Care? Here’s How to Find Out if the Government Took Your Money.
In terminating Louisiana’s collection of federal Social Security benefits for foster children, Louisiana will join the 28 states (including Washington, D.C.) that have recently enacted related reforms. Progress has been slow. Today, only ten states fully secure all federal benefits for their children in foster care, not for their own state coffers.
Senator McMath’s SB 33 Prohibits DCFS From Using Foster Children’s Financial Resources
Assuming Senate Bill 33, prefiled on February 6, 2026 by Senator Patrick McMath (Chair, Senate Health and Welfare Committee), passes, Louisiana will become one of 28 states to enact reforms related to children’s federal benefits. Senate Bill 33 will prohibit DCFS from using any of a foster child’s earned federal benefits, savings, or assets to pay for or reimburse DCFS or the state of Louisiana for any cost of the child’s care, maintenance, supervision, or services.
With SB 33 prefiled, Louisiana joins 19 other states that have pending legislation designed to ensure children’s Social Security and survivor benefits are not collected by child welfare agencies as state revenue.
Oddly, after nearly a decade of national advocacy on this issue, with DHH’s Administration for Children and Families notifying 39 Governors recently to stop intercepting foster children’s federal benefits, and while nearly every state now acknowledges it is wrong to take federal benefits from children in foster care, states are not creating ways for foster youth to retroactively recover their benefits.
Governor Landry’s Executive Order JML 26-021 correctly asserts that “these earned survivors’ federal benefits are the legal property of the child, not the State.” As written, Senate Bill 33 is designed to ensure that children in foster care receive the federal benefits they are entitled to from the Social Security Administration or the Department of Veterans Affairs, including survivor’s or dependent benefits. Also, going forward, Senator McMath’s SB 33 provides a clear process and requires proper accounting.
What About Former Foster Children?
While they require DCFS to quit taking survivor benefits, in our opinion, neither Governor Landry’s Executive Order JML 26-021 nor Senator McMath’s SB 33 goes far enough. Neither requires that DCFS refund current and former foster youth the federal benefits Louisiana has previously collected in their names.
For children in foster care who have lost nearly everything precious, the restoration of what states have already taken from foster children is a crucial recompense and acknowledgement that earned survivors’ federal benefits are the legal property of the child, not the state.
Finally, some may say, “the past is behind us, and there’s no way we can know what may have been taken from any particular foster children.” Not so.
After reading the 2021 NPR/Marshall Project article, I asked DCFS if the audit of these funds was public information. DCFS responded that there is no public audit available, but that “the audit/accounting is child specific, contains the child’s Social Security number and is entered directly into the Social Security Administration online portal.”
So, if you have ever been a child in foster care, I encourage you to follow the guidance of The Marshall Project and seek your legal property.
Rick Wheat
Chief Advocacy Officer
Methodist Children’s Home | Center for Child Well-being