With Sununu’s backing, foster children are closer to getting parents’ Social Security payments

Dawson Hayes learned when he was adopted out of foster care by Carolyn Mallon, of Concord, that the state was keeping the nearly $16,000 it had collected in Social Security benefits on his behalf. Hayes testified for a bill signed this month by Gov. Chris Sununu that aims to end that practice. (Annmarie Timmins | New Hampshire Bulletin)

The state is a step closer to returning parents’ Social Security payments to kids when they leave foster care, with Gov. Chris Sununu’s signature on House Bill 1598 . Though, it will take more legislation before kids see the money.

Dawson Hayes, who will be a Concord High junior this year, put a face on the issue when he testified in favor of the bill. Hayes learned when he was adopted in February that the state was keeping the nearly $16,000 it had collected on his behalf from his parents during his three years in foster care.

The practice is not unique to Hayes’ case or to New Hampshire.

Last year, the state collected about $521,000 in benefits from about 90 kids, who are eligible for benefits due to their own disability or based on a parent’s death or disability.

In 2021, nearly every state held onto Social Security benefits for children in foster care. To do so, states had to use the money to reimburse themselves for the cost of foster care. Far fewer states do so today.

The Children’s Advocacy Institute reported in April that approximately half of the states had reformed that practice, had tried to, or were considering it.

New Hampshire’s practice troubled Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, a Concord Democrat and the bill’s prime sponsor.

She had hoped to end the practice immediately. While Wallner found bipartisan support at the State House and from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the foster program, the department asked for more time to analyze the current practice and how to change it.

The bill Sununu signed appropriates $150,000 for that analysis. Wallner hopes the findings will help her get a bill through the next session that ends the practice, in time for the state budget negotiations.