Action Alert Update:
House Acts on Welfare Reauthorization; Senate is Next!

On May 16, 2002, the House voted 229 -197 along party lines to approve the administration-backed bill HR 4737 to make changes to the 1996 welfare reform legislation. No amendments were allowed to the specific aspects of the bill. The Democrats offered a substitute bill, HR 3526, which was defeated by a vote of 222-198.

HR 4737 maintains current funding of $16.5 billion to renew the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program. The bill requires individuals to work 40 hours per week (up from 30) to be eligible for assistance and it requires states to have 70 percent (up from 50 percent) or more of their families working by 2007. Most welfare recipients would have to work at least three days a week in regular jobs or government-created workfare positions. The other two days could be spent in training, drug treatment or other programs. This could result in states creating make-work, dead-end jobs just to meet the quotas. Under present law, a welfare recipient can take vocational education courses for a year and have that count as work. HR 4737 eliminates that possibility.

The bill would also authorize an additional $2 billion in funding for childcare over five years, $300 million a year for experiments promoting marriage, and $50 million to promote abstinence from sex until marriage.

The bill continues to exclude non-citizens from welfare, health and disability programs for their first five years in the United States.  HR 4737 would allow states to combine different types of block grants but bar them from using a waiver to transfer funds between accounts.

In the six years since the landmark 1996 bill became law, tough new rules and a roaring economy combined to cut the welfare rolls by more than half. Many of those who have left welfare are working but are not earning enough money to escape poverty.

Democrats are now looking to the Senate in hopes of securing more money for childcare, education and training. They also want to restore benefits for legal immigrants, cut from aid programs in 1996.  Senate moderates of both parties are advocating tougher work requirements. But many of them want to give states more flexibility to decide what counts as "work."

Your Action Needed!

This is the crucial time to influence your Senators to make sure that the main TANF Reauthorization bill coming out of the Finance Committee truly reflects what you want. The Finance Committee is expected to introduce its bill yet this month (May), and mark-up as soon as the week after Memorial Recess!

Take action and call your Senators now!

The NCC supports the following principles as guidelines for developing meaningful welfare reform. We believe to be successful, any reform must have poverty reduction as a goal:

1. Focus on poverty reduction.

A central goal of TANF should be poverty reduction, not just caseload reduction. Cash benefits, combined with wages and supportive services, must be sufficient to allow each family to meet its basic needs. In no case should former TANF recipients receive less in combined benefits and income as a result of working than they received while they were on TANF.

2.      Be adequately funded.

TANF funding should be increased at least to accommodate increases in the cost of living and states should be required to continue the current maintenance of effort levels, to assure that all who are eligible can be served.

3. Provide education and training and eliminate barriers to employment.

Priority should be given at every level to eliminating barriers to employment. This includes providing training and education necessary for unskilled workers to get and hold jobs, and providing all low-wage workers with critical support services such as health care, quality childcare, tax credits, transportation and housing assistance. All job placements made through TANF should lead to family-sustaining wages and comply with workplace protection laws.

4. Serve all who need help.

TANF should be available to all people in need. This includes legal immigrants, whose eligibility for benefits should be the same as that of citizens, and those who cannot work outside the home because of physical or mental handicaps, care-giving responsibilities, or multiple barriers to employment.

5. Give states flexibility with regard to time limits.

Flexibility should be increased with regard to time limits, so that those who are complying with program requirements but still need assistance in order to meet family needs may remain eligible beyond the established deadlines. States should have increased flexibility to exempt part of their caseloads from time limits on the basis of special needs.

This statement is excerpted from a longer document, A Call to Poverty Reduction in the Context of Reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), endorsed by over two dozen national religious denominations and organizations.

May 21, 2002