June 23, 2004, Update: TANF Funding Extended Through September; A New Study

The Urban Institute has recently released an interesting new study that you may find useful as you do advocacy on TANF and other low-income issues. It is about how poor families cope without government assistance. Click here for the report.

UPDATE ON T.A.N.F. REAUTHORIZATION

The House and Senate have agreed to extend funding for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) for another three months, ending September 30. This will buy a bit more time while the leadership of both houses decides how to deal with the issue of a five-year reauthorization, action it has postponed for two years since the 1996 TANF legislation expired in 2002.

The advocacy community is divided into two schools of thought on what outcome would be preferable.

(1) One group is calling for a multi-year extension of the current program, with no changes to either the funding level or the requirements of the TANF program. From the standpoint of low-income families, this would probably be the preferable option IF it were attainable. The bill approved by the House is significantly more punitive than the current program, while the one approved by the Senate Finance Committee is better in some ways and worse in others but would have to be conferenced with the House bill. A House-Senate conference would assuredly produce a bill that places far more demands on TANF families than the current program does without providing the additional resources necessary to meet their urgent needs.

The problem with calling for a multi-year clean extension of the existing program is that there is virtually no likelihood that Congress will agree not to amend the program. In fact, the decision to approve a three-month extension was unexpected. The House had indicated that it would insist on increasing work hours, while Sen. Santorum (R-PA) has been adamant that no bill would get out of the Senate without provisions to divert funds from basic TANF benefits to support his and the Administration’s marriage promotion agenda. Thus, while a three-to-five-year extension of the current program would be most desirable, there is no chance of its being approved by Congress.

(2) Another group of advocates supports a five-year reauthorization of TANF, amending the current program to correct its deficiencies and make it more helpful to beneficiaries, with the ultimate goal of helping those who can work to find family-supporting jobs. This is the option preferred by the House and Senate leadership, but achieving this goal has proven elusive so far.

The House passed its reauthorization bill (H.R. 4) in February 2003, requiring significantly increased work hours for TANF families while providing no additional child care.  The Senate Finance Committee reported a different version of reauthorization (the PRIDE bill), also increasing work hours but by a smaller amount. The full Senate began its debate by adopting an amendment that would significantly increase funding for child care, but the effort broke down when an amendment to increase the minimum wage was proposed. The Senate leadership has refused to vote on this issue for years. There has been no attempt to bring TANF back to the Senate floor.

Leaders of the Senate and of the Committees involved are still trying to find ways to amend the PRIDE bill to make it acceptable to a majority of members, so that they can pass a bill and take it to conference with the House measure. As approved by the Finance Committee, the Senate bill addressed some of the concerns of the religious community and was significantly better for low-income families than HR 4. It is likely to be changed, however, and advocates are concerned that what gains there have been will be lost in a conference with the House. On the other hand, putting a decision off until next year could mean that funding for TANF would be reduced, given the pressures placed on the federal budget by the mounting cost of the war in Iraq.

The religious advocacy community continues to support reauthorization of TANF that will:

- retain the current work requirements of 20 hours per week for families with pre-school children and 30 hours for those with children age 6 and above;

- significantly increase funding for child care;

- reinstate TANF and health care benefits for legal immigrants;

- give states flexibility to determine what counts as work and expand education and training possibilities for recipients; and

- give states flexibility with regard to time limits, so that they can waive or extend limits for families with significant barriers to employment.

Please contact your Senators while they are at home during the Independence Day recess and urge them to bring TANF reauthorization to a vote this year and to support the features above. You can find information on your Senators’ home offices at www.senate.gov by clicking on their homepages.

Click here for more information on TANF