February 17, 2004: Senate to Vote Soon on TANF Reauthorization

THE ISSUE:

Senators will be at home the week of February 16 to mark President’s Day. This would be an ideal time to call or visit them in support of TANF. You can find information on how to reach their state offices at www.senate.gov

The Senate is likely to vote before the end of February on the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) Act. This is the Senate Finance Committee’s effort to reauthorize TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), the nation’s primary cash assistance program for low-income families with children. The PRIDE bill reflects some of the religious community’s principles for TANF reauthorization but falls short in other areas.

ACTION NEEDED:

Contact your Senators and urge them to support amendments on the Senate floor that will:

• Increase funding by at least $6 billion above the Finance Committee level to meet child care needs (Sens. Snowe and Dodd are sponsoring this amendment);

• Restore full benefits to immigrants, including TANF, child health and Medicaid assistance, child care, and education and job training (Sen. Clinton’s amendment would reinstate TANF eligibility);

• Retain the current 20-hour per week work requirement for parents of children under age 6 and the 30-hour per week work requirement for parents of school-age children;

• Expand education and training opportunities by counting participation in such programs as complying with work requirements for 24 months, and support the Parents as Scholars program, allowing 10% of TANF recipients to get post-secondary education;

• Eliminate the “superwaiver” provision allowing ten states to waive federal requirements in order to coordinate TANF, Social Service Block Grant, and child care programs;

• Allow states to count participation in activities designed to help TANF recipients overcome barriers to employment as complying with the work requirement for more than six months if the necessity to do so can be documented.

TO CONTACT YOUR SENATORS:

Call or visit their state offices to express your concerns, or send e-mail to either or both Washington and state offices. Letters will be delivered promptly to state offices, but do not write to their Washington offices; mail delivery is extremely slow to Capitol Hill because of security concerns.

BACKGROUND:

The authorization for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families expired September 30, 2002. Since then, TANF has operated at the 1997 funding level through a series of continuing resolutions approved by Congress. The current one expires March 31, 2004. If Congress fails to reauthorize TANF, another continuation will be needed. Last February the House approved its version of TANF reauthorization (H.R. 4), which reflected the President’s proposal. The Senate Finance Committee reported PRIDE in September, but the Senate took no action.

State Participation Rates: Current law requires that in each state 50% of all single parents (and 90% of two-parent families) on TANF meet work requirements. The House and Senate bills would both raise the 50% rate to 70% by 2008.

Work Requirement: Under TANF, parents of children under age 6 are required to work 20 hours per week, rising to 30 hours when children are over 6. Two-parent families must work 35 hours (or 55 if they receive federally subsidized child care). The House bill calls for 160 hours a month of work regardless of children’s ages or the number of adults in the family. PRIDE requires 24 hours weekly for single parents with preschool children, 34 for single parents with children over age 6 , and 39 for two-parent families (55 with child care subsidy).

The religious community opposes increased work requirements because there is already a shortage of child care under current law. Also, employers of TANF recipients may be unable or unwilling to pay for additional work hours, forcing recipients to work multiple jobs to comply.

Eligible Work Activities: Current law considers a TANF recipient as in compliance with the work requirement if she/he spends 20 hours a week at a paid job or in on-the-job training, a workfare position (unpaid supervised work experience), or community service. Participating in vocational training now counts as compliance (for 12 months), as does searching for work (for 6 weeks) and providing child care for other TANF recipients. For those required to work 30 hours, up to ten may be spent in education, job training, and high school or GED completion.

H.R. 4 raises the number of work hours to 24, does not count job search, and limits vocational education and training to three months. The remaining hours needed to meet the total of 160 monthly are left to the discretion of the states. The Senate bill counts work-readiness activities and paid work, as well as barrier removal and education and training for six months in 24. For those required to work over 24 hours a week, states may count high school and GED classes, job training, substance abuse counseling and treatment, and other programs designed to overcome barriers to work. The Senate bill would let up to 10% of a state’s caseload participate in post-secondary or vocational education for over 12 months. H.R. 4 has no such provision.

The religious community supports giving states broad latitude to let recipients participate in education and training programs as well as those that assist with removal of barriers to work for as long as needed to help participants gain employment at family-supporting wages.

Child Care: PRIDE and H.R. 4 both provide an increase of $1 billion in mandatory child care funding over five years Mandatory funding for the last fiscal year was $2.7 billion. The Bush budget proposal would actually reduce the number of child care slots by 365,000 over the next few years.

The religious community believes this increase is inadequate and advocates much higher child care funding because there is a critical shortage of safe and accessible child care for low-income families. Most studies of TANF’s effectiveness cite the lack of reliable child care as the greatest barrier to employment.

Superwaivers: Current law does not include superwaivers, a concept put forward in the Administration’s TANF proposal. Under the House bill, states could waive federal requirements in the TANF, Food Stamp, public housing, homelessness, Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), basic adult education, and Workforce Investment Act programs. The Senate bill would allow ten states to waive all federal laws and rules regarding only TANF, SSBG, and CCDF, in the interest of coordinating participation.

The religious community opposes superwaivers, contending that the program rules provide essential nondiscrimination protections for participants.

Immigrants: Current law denies benefits under TANF, Medicaid, and the State child Health Insurance Program to most legal immigrants for the first five years that they reside in the U.S. The House and Senate bills would continue this ban.

The religious community favors lifting the prohibition on the grounds that most of the immigrant families affected work in low-wage jobs, pay taxes, and meet the TANF requirements but need help to get established in their new country. Their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens, need health care and other social services to grow into healthy, productive members of society.

For more information, contact Mary Cooper, NCC