After four days of debate, Senate Democrats blocked action on a bill (H.R. 4) to reauthorize programs under the 1996 welfare law (P.L. 104-193). On April 1, a GOP leadership effort to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 4 failed, 51-47, nine votes short of the 60 necessary to limit debate.
The House approved H.R. 4 on February 13, 2003 (see The Source, 2/14/03). The measure would provide $16.5 billion through FY2008 for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which gives block grants to states to design welfare programs that focus on moving recipients away from government dependence and into the job market.
The bill would reauthorize mandatory child care funding at $2.9 billion. H.R. 4 would establish a marriage promotion matching grant program, authorizing $100 million for programs that encourage healthy, two-parent families. The measure also would authorize a $20 million annual grant program to support community efforts to promote responsible fatherhood, and $50 million for abstinence-only education programs.
The House bill would require welfare recipients to work a full 40-hour work week, up from 30 hours under current law, and states would be required to put at least 70 percent of their welfare clients to work by 2008.
On September 10, the Senate Finance Committee approved an amended version of H.R. 4 (see The Source, 9/12/03). The Senate bill would require welfare recipients to work a 34-hour week. Recipients would be required to spend 24 hours of their 34-hour week in direct work, up from 20 hours under current law, and states would have the flexibility to decide which activities, such as education or substance abuse treatment, should be included in the remaining 10 hours.
During consideration of the bill, the Senate approved, 78-20, an amendment by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) that would increase mandatory child care funding by $6 billion over the next five years.
Explaining that the aim of welfare reform “is to move people off the welfare rolls and on to the payrolls,” Sen. Snowe stated, “Providing support in the form of quality affordable child care is a prerequisite to realizing that goal. Of course, as with anything else, child care comes with a price. In some states, it can cost as much as a year’s tuition in a public college. Factor in additional costs of infant care or odd-hour care, such as nights or weekends or care for children with special needs, and the challenge increases significantly. So for a parent working toward financial independence, typically earning minimum wage, it is not hard to see how child care can be the budget.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said that today “the need for child care is growing, but government support is not. In fact, because of the slow economy and state budget problems, many states are cutting back on their support of child care. This is having an especially painful impact on low-income families the very families that are helped the most by child care. These are also the same families that will need more help because of the work requirements in the underlying bill.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) offered an amendment that would have increased the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.00 an hour over the next two years. When a vote on the amendment was not allowed, many Democrats voted against the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 4.
Sen. Boxer pointed out that the last time the federal minimum wage was raised “it was $4.25 an hour. In 1996, it was raised to $5.15. It was over a two-year period. So that is 8 years ago; 8 years ago we raised the federal minimum wage. Those people at the bottom of the economic ladder are living on $10,700 a year.”
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) argued that increasing the minimum wage is a women’s issue because “61 percent of those who earn the minimum wage are women. This is about children. We know that 3 million children live in families whose parent is working in a minimum wage job. So it is about women and children.”
Expressing his frustration that the amendment would stall action on the bill, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) stated, “We have to put the priorities where the priorities ought to be: to help people get jobs and keep jobs so that all these other issues that are coming up will be applicable to more workers.” Sen. Grassley noted that the average family on welfare has two children and is headed by a young woman. “The women who head these families are desperately poor,” he stated. “Contrary to the way the argument over minimum wage was characterized, they are not working. That is why it is so important to get this legislation passed before you worry about the minimum wage because we have to give them the support so they can get out there in the world of work so they can get the minimum wage in the first place.”
On March 30, the House approved, by voice vote, a bill (S. 2231) to extend the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) through June 30, 2004. The Senate approved the measure on March 25 (see The Source, 3/26/04). President Bush signed the bill into law (P.L. 108-210) on March 31. Since its expiration in September 2002, Congress has approved six extensions of the 1996 law.
