The House Education and the Workforce Committee held an April 9 hearing to examine the administration’s welfare reform proposal. The hearing was the third at which Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson defended the President’s plan (see The Source, 3/15/02).
Committee Chair John Boehner (R-OH) highlighted the success of the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) and praised the President’s plan for building on the success of the current law. “One of the myths that welfare reform opponents like to employ is that the reductions in welfare caseloads and child poverty during the late 1990s were the result of a healthy economy, not the welfare reform law,” he said, and added, “But history shows that this argument simply doesn’t hold water: during other long economic booms in the 1960s and ’80s, welfare caseloads actually rose.”
Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI), however, criticized the President’s proposal. She told the Secretary, “The major way in which to move from welfare to self-sufficiency is through education and training,” and added, “You are going in the opposite direction.” Additionally, she called the provision in the President’s plan to increase the work week for welfare recipients from 30 to 40 required hours “a gross mistake.”
“This is an important step, since 40 hours is the normal work period for all Americans,” Secretary Thompson told the committee. “We want the men and women who are transitioning from welfare to understand what will be demanded of them in the real world,” he said.
Secretary Thompson explained that the work requirements would not be rigid. Welfare recipients would be required to be engaged in direct work activities, such as on-the-job training or employment, for only 24 hours. States would have broad flexibility in determining how recipients would spend the remaining 16 hours.
The President’s plan also would require states to increase the percentage of welfare clients who must hold a job from 50 percent to 70 percent by the year 2007. The caseload reduction credit in the 1996 welfare law would be eliminated because, according to Secretary Thompson, it was too generous to states and wiped out any meaningful work requirements.
Additionally, under the President’s proposal, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant would be level-funded at $16.5 million, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) also would be level-funded at $2.1 billion.
During the question-and-answer period, several Members on the committee raised concerns about placing too much emphasis on work requirements and not enough on reducing poverty. “Work is important,” acknowledged Rep. Tim Roemer (D-IN). “But shouldn’t we be asking about the quality of that work and whether it will give people the ability to move up the economic ladder?” he asked.
Others were critical of the proposal to increase the work requirements without providing more funding for child care. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) recounted her experiences as a welfare mom and the difficulty she had obtaining child care. “I had 13 different child care situations in 8 months,” she said. “There is no way we can flat fund child care and make it possible for moms to go to work 40 hours and be successful,” she emphasized, and asked, “Where are you going to find money in the budget” to allow mothers to get adequate child care and go to work?
Secretary Thompson replied, “I also feel passionately about child care.” He explained that funding for homeland security has made it difficult to increase funding for other programs adding that, in addition to funding for the CCDBG, 30 percent of TANF funding can be used for child care.
In response to a question by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) regarding the marriage initiative, Secretary Thompson explained that the President’s proposal would authorize $100 million for programs, such as counseling, to promote marriage.
The second panel included representatives from private organizations with differing viewpoints of the President’s plan. Wendell Primus of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was critical of the Administration’s welfare plan, saying it would limit flexibility and force states to abandon their own successful programs. While caseloads are declining, the remaining families on welfare have significant barriers to work, such as physical and mental impairment, or a disabled child. He told the committee that states have just begun to fine-tune their programs to address these issues. “TANF reauthorization should address these challenges by building on current effective states strategies to help families overcome barriers to employment and find better jobs,” he urged.
Jason Turner of the Heritage Foundation disagreed, recommending that the reauthorized bill should increase the work requirements and reduce funding for the TANF program by 10 percent. “The President’s TANF reauthorization proposal, Working Toward Independence, moves us in the right direction toward the next level of reform by focusing state programs on increasing the level of effort made by individuals in the program, and by increasing the program’s breadth and reach,” he said.
Shortly after the hearing, Rep. Howard McKeon (R-CA), who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, introduced a welfare reform bill (H.R. 4092) that mirrors the President’s proposal.
