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Congressional Testimony
August 1, 2001, Wednesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 6688 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
HEADLINE: CHALLENGES FACING WORKING FAMILIES
BILL-NO:
H.R.
2097 Retrieve
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1909 Retrieve
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H.R.
1143 Retrieve
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H.R. 2142
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Full Text of Bill TESTIMONY-BY: SHARON DALY,
VICE PRESIDENT
AFFILIATION: FOR SOCIAL POLICY
BODY: August 1, 2001
STATEMENT OF SHARON
DALY
VICE PRESIDENT FOR SOCIAL POLICY
"MAKING ENDS MEET:
CHALLENGES FACING
WORKING FAMILIES IN AMERICA"
Mr. Chairman,
Congressman Spratt, and members of the Budget Committee: My name is Sharon Daly,
and I serve as Vice President for Social Policy at Catholic Charities USA. I
would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify before this Committee on
the challenges facing working families in America. Catholic Charities USA is the
national association of more than 1,400 independent local Catholic Charities
agencies and institutions with more than 250,000 staff members and volunteers.
In 1999, Catholic Charities' programs served nearly 10 million people of all
religions - or of no religion - and of every racial, ethnic and social
background. The Working Poor
On a daily basis, our agencies provide
services to the struggling families who are the focus of today's hearing. The
people coming through our doors are the people whose daily labors make life
easier for all of us. They clean our houses and our office buildings. They care
for our children in understaffed day care centers, or for our parents in nursing
homes and long term care facilities. They stock the shelves in our supermarkets.
They harvest our food in the fields, get meat and poultry to market in the
slaughterhouses, and prepare food and serve it in restaurants and cafeterias.
They have provided the difficult and often backbreaking labor that has played a
large role in creating and sustaining this nation's recent economic boom.
Every day, Catholic Charities staff provide help to working parents who
cannot afford to put food on the table after spending so much of their income on
rent and child care. They see parents who are living in our shelters far from
their children's schools, because there is no affordable housing available. They
see parents who have worked for years at low wages with no benefits, who have
been unable to afford regular check-ups and are now suffering from untreated
diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. And our experience with these
working families has led us to conclude that the federal government can and must
do more to ensure that parents can provide for their children without having to
come to Catholic Charities for a handout.
Consider, for example, that in
the past year, requests for emergency food assistance nationwide, including at
Catholic Charities agencies, were up 30 percent, mostly from the working poor.
Indeed, according to our front line caseworkers, the typical family coming to us
for emergency food assistance is a parent working at or even $1 or $2 above the
minimum wage. Each month, after paying rent, utilities and child care costs, and
arranging transportation to and from her job (often far from where she lives),
she has no money left to put food on the table. And that's a good month. If she
gets sick, for example, and has unpaid medical bills, or loses time off work,
she will get behind in the rent.
The experience of our local agencies
may seem difficult to reconcile with the generally positive economic news. How
can it be that working families have to come to churches and charities for food
when we are in the midst of the strongest economy that this country has ever
seen? How can so many families be living so close to the edge when, as the
Census Bureau figures tell us, in 1999 the nation's poverty rate fell to 11.8
percent, its lowest level since 1979, and poverty among African Americans fell
to 23.6 percent, its lowest level ever?
This phenomenon is easier to
understand if you look closely at the official definition of poverty, and
compare that with what it really takes a family to live, factoring in the actual
costs of the basic expenses: rent, utilities, child care, transportation to
work, and of course, food. The fact is, parents aren't earning enough to cover
these basic expenses and make ends meet without government assistance. And,
unfortunately, government assistance has often been missing or inadequate. I
would like to talk today about what the federal government can do to help these
struggling families.
Before I get to my recommendations, I would ask
that you enter into the record a story recently published in the Ford Foundation
Report titled: "The Real Cost of Living: Self-Sufficiency May be the Next
Frontier for U.S. Welfare Reform." Unlike the federal poverty guidelines, the
Self-Sufficiency Standard is a precise measurement of how much income a family
needs to manage without government assistance or private help, taking into
account actual, local costs for basic needs like adequate housing, food that
meets minimum nutrition levels, child care and transportation to work.
The article features the story of a low-wage mother of two young
children, working 50 hours per week at $8.50 per hour - or $18,000 a year - yet
struggling to make ends meet. Under the standard federal poverty measurement,
this young mother is well over the threshold of $14,630 for a family of three.
Yet she walked into her local Catholic Charities agency in Allentown,
Pennsylvania, for emergency food assistance.
She would need to earn
$14.98/hour - almost double her current wage - to meet her family's basic needs
without assistance. This example illustrates precisely the reason there is such
a disconnect between the glowing accounts about reductions in child poverty and
unemployment in the past five years, and the actual struggles of working parents
who are truly living on the edge.
Addressing this growing disparity must
be of primary concern to the federal government because, without government
action, the situation will only get worse. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the
richest one percent of Americans saw their wealth grow by an average of $414,000
- an increase of 157 percent - while the poorest 20 percent of Americans saw
their average wealth decrease by $100. 1 While those at the top of the economic
ladder are thriving, working parents are finding it impossible to provide for
their families. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated in its
Pastoral Letter, Economic Justice for All:
The obligation to provide
justice for all means that the poor have the single most urgent economic claim
on the conscience of the nation . . . to see a loved one sick is bad enough, but
to have no possibility of obtaining health care is worse. To face family
problems . . . can be devastating, but to have these lead to the loss of one's
home and end with living on the streets is something no one should have to
endure in a country as rich as ours.
The poor cannot be helped only
through private charitable giving or private volunteer efforts, though these are
important components in any just society. Our Catholic teaching tells us that it
is the also the responsibility of society, acting through government, to assist
and empower the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled, and the unemployed. The
principle of subsidiarity is an important component of Catholic social teaching,
but it does not mean that the federal government should cede responsibility for
the poor. Rather, the principle of subsidiarity acknowledges that many
challenges facing the poor are national in scope, will be beyond the
capabilities of private charities, or even local and state governments, to
address, and that can best be remedied by federal legislation. The factors that
make it so difficult for working parents to provide for their families - working
for less than a living wage, a shortage of affordable housing and quality child
care, and a lack of access to health care - are national problems that require a
national solution.
Recommendations for Reform
I. Congress should
Increase the Minimum Wage The most important change that the federal government
should make to support working families is to substantially increase the minimum
wage, and index it for inflation so that its buying power would not erode over
time. Catholic social teaching tells us that raising the hourly minimum wage is
not just an economic issue - it's a moral issue. In our Catholic teaching, all
economic institutions have a responsibility to support the bonds of community
and solidarity that are essential to human dignity. In other words, paying a
decent living wage provides more than buying power; it recognizes the worth and
humanity of our brothers and sisters, and when private employers fail to meet
this standard, government must step in.
Current proposals would raise
the minimum wage $1.50 over two years. When implemented, this increase would
give full-time workers an additional $3,120 per year to help provide for their
families. We would certainly welcome such a move, although even that increase is
too little for families to exist solely on what they earn. As a result, the
federal government and the states have an obligation to provide a variety of
work supports that can bridge the gap between what working parents can earn and
what it really costs to live in dignity. Over the long term, Congress should
work steadily toward making the minimum wage a living wage.
II. Congress
Should Enact Additional Work Supports for Low-Income Families
A.
Affordable Housing for Low-Income Families
According to our member
agencies, the number one problem of low- income families is the shortage of
affordable housing. There is an affordable housing crisis in this country. HUD
reports that the number of families who pay more than half their incomes for
rent, live in severely substandard housing, or both, is at an all- time high. In
March of 1999, HUD released a report titled Waiting in Vain: An Update on
America's Rental Housing Crisis, which reported on families who endure waiting
lists for years before finding affordable housing. And the situation is not
improving. A report released last month by the National Housing Conference found
that one out of every seven American families - 13 million in all - had a
critical housing need in 1999.
In October of 1999, Catholic Charities of
the Archdiocese of Chicago issued its own statement on the lack of affordable
housing for low-income families. The conclusions in that paper are no different
than what is being reported throughout the country: a shortage of 153,300
low-income rental units in the Chicago area; average rents of $736 per month, a
difficult figure for a minimum wage family to afford; and rents rising at nearly
twice the rate of inflation. Out of that paper has developed a proposal that
gets at the very heart of the housing crisis: the need for the federal
government to do more to spur production of affordable housing stock. We have
proposed a pilot project, building on the successful Section 202 program for the
elderly, to create new housing stock for low-income families. Under our
proposal, the federal government would provide funding to faith- based
organizations to produce and maintain housing for low- income families. The
housing would include supportive services for residents, ranging from job
training to child care to parenting
education. This program is
a model that can be replicated throughout the country to fill the void left by
private developers, who can make far more money building luxury and vacation
homes for high-income families than affordable housing for working families.
Simply put, without proactive measures by the federal government, our housing
crisis will never be solved.
B. Increase Resources for Child Care
Next to the lack of affordable housing, our local agencies report that
that lack of affordable, quality child care is a critical obstacle to success in
retaining a job and advancing in the workplace. While Congress recently
increased the FY 2001 Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) by a
welcome $817 million, there are still less than 20 percent of eligible children
now receiving help. This is an increase up from 10 percent, so we are moving in
the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.
There are a
number of factors that make it difficult for low- income families to find or
afford quality child care. Parents lacking job experience or skills frequently
have to accept jobs on weekends or the night shifts, when office buildings need
to be cleaned or fast food positions need to be staffed. Child care during these
non-traditional hours is woefully scarce, and parents often must turn to
substandard substitutes. In addition, state subsidy rates are below the local
fair market rates. Inadequate subsidies deprive parents of genuine options in
choosing day care providers, keep poor children out of existing quality child
care programs, and limit providers' ability to attract qualified staff with
fairer salaries or improved benefits. And finally, child care workers are
seriously underpaid; the average salary is $14,000. These low salaries, which
often don't include benefits, contribute to a high rate of staff turnover, which
is difficult on the children in care. The inability to attract and retain
quality workers to care for our nation's children is a problem that must be
addressed. And, finally, there are not enough child care dollars to serve all
who are eligible for assistance.
We urge Congress to increase the FY
2002 CCDBG budget by $1 billion. This increase should be part of an annual
Congressional commitment to narrowing the gap between the children who receive
CCDBG aid and the number who need it. And CCDGB funds must be used to address
the urgent need for more child care facilities to provide non-traditional hours
of service.
In addition, Congress should pass the "Child Care Quality
Incentive Act" (H.R. 2097/S. 1000). This legislation, introduced in the House by
Representative Sanford Bishop and in the Senate by Senator Jack Reed, provides
incentives for states to increase quality, including tools to allow states to
attract and retain qualified staff; provide salary increases and benefits to
child care workers; maintain healthy environments in child care centers; and
purchase basic supplies and educational materials.
I would add one
additional note on this subject. Catholic Charities USA, along with numerous
other organizations, has long urged Congress to restore funding for the Social
Services Block Grant (SSBG), which provides a wide range of services to the
poorest and most vulnerable Americans. Programs funded under SSBG have had to be
scaled back in recent years, since Congress transferred part of the budget
authority for SSBG to federal highway programs. The just-published SSBG Annual
Report on Expenditures and Recipients for 1999, reports that:
Twelve and
a half million individuals in the country received services that were funded at
least partially by the SSBG. . .Child day care, with the support of SSBG, served
the largest number of recipients. Forty three states reported SSBG expenditures
for child day care; 2.62 million children received day care services supported
at least partially by the SSBG. In other words, nearly half of all child
recipients (6.8 million [54 percent] of all recipients of the 1999 SSBG)
received child day care services. Expenditures of $397 million for child day
care, the largest category of SSBG expenditures, accounted for 13 percent of all
SSBG expenditures.
In light of this report, Congress should take steps
to restore SSBG funding, in addition to the reforms mentioned above, as a means
of increasing access to affordable child care. 2 H.R. 2097 currently has 60
cosponsors, while S. 1000 has 5 cosponsors.
C. Increase Access to Health
Care
Catholic Charities USA has long advocated for the adoption of
universal health coverage, which would allow all individuals to receive
on-going, preventive care when they are healthy, and necessary corrective care
when they are ill. While we realize that Congress is unlikely to consider
proposals for universal coverage in the 107 th Congress, we have been encouraged
by statements made during discussions on a Patient's Bill of Rights indicating
that Congress should do more to help the nearly 43 million individuals who
currently lack health insurance.
In fact, Congress can take a
significant step toward greater access to insurance this year by expanding
Medicaid and SCHIP to cover working parents and children with disabilities. Many
people mistakenly believe that families living at or below the poverty level
receive health care coverage through Medicaid. While that is true for low-income
children, the same can not be said for low- income parents. Indeed, a study just
released by Families USA found that 81 percent of low-income, uninsured adults
do not qualify for Medicaid or other public health coverage in their states. The
vast majority of the uninsured are in working families.
The budget
resolution recently approved by both houses of Congress provides $28 billion to
spend on health care for the uninsured. This provision will be meaningless,
however, if Congress does not pass authorizing legislation and appropriate the
funds. We hope that Congress will act soon to use this money to provide coverage
under Medicaid and SCHIP to working parents and pregnant women. This is
particularly important in light of recent studies demonstrating that providing
public health coverage to parents leads to increased enrollment in public health
programs by their children. When parents are included in state health programs,
their kids benefit - often dramatically. As a study by the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities showed, states that expanded their public health programs to
parents saw children's participation rates increase significantly, from 51
percent to 67 percent, compared to an increase of 51 percent to 54 percent in
states without similar expansions.
We know that there is a clear
correlation between lack of insurance and access to health care. The uninsured
have more difficulty obtaining primary care and access to essential medication,
and have a higher rate of hospitalization for treatable conditions such as
hypertension, asthma or diabetes. It is simply unacceptable that so many hard
working Americans, whose daily labors make life easier for all of us, must
suffer the consequences that result from being uninsured.
While we are
on the subject of health care, I would like to mention two areas of health care
that our agencies deal with quite frequently: substance abuse and mental health.
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy's 2001 Annual Report,
more than five million individuals are in need of immediate treatment for drug
abuse, yet less than half of those individuals will receive it. Our agencies
report the same sad story, frequently having clients for whom no treatment is
available. This "gap" in treatment resources has significant negative
consequences for society, including decreased family stability, lower worker
productivity and higher crime rates. We know that effective substance abuse
treatment works. By devoting additional resources to fund substance abuse
treatment programs - and particularly integrated treatment for individuals who
suffer from both substance abuse and mental health disorders - Congress could
help reduce the gap in unmet substance abuse treatment needs.
Two bills
pending before Congress would do just that. Representatives Charles Rangel and
Ben Cardin, and Senators Olympia J. Snowe and John D. Rockefeller, have
introduced H.R. 1909, the "Child Protection/Alcohol and Drug Partnership Act of
2001" (H.R. 1909/S. 484). This legislation would provide funding to promote
joint activities among federal, state and local child welfare and alcohol and
drug abuse prevention and treatment agencies. Senators Orrin Hatch, Patrick J.
Leahy, and Joseph R. Biden have introduced S. 304, the "Drug Abuse
Education, Prevention, and Treatment Act of 2001," which would
provide additional federal funds for programs ranging from jail-based substance
abuse treatment to residential treatment centers for women with children to
treatment for persons living in rural states and economically depressed
communities.
Similarly, we urge Congress to pass S. 543, the "Mental
Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2001," introduced by Senators Pete Domenici
and Paul Wellstone.7 S. 543 will prevent group health plans from imposing
different treatment limitations and financial requirements on individuals
suffering from mental illnesses than those imposed on individuals suffering from
physical illnesses. According to the Department of Health and Human Services,
each year 56 million Americans experience a diagnosable mental disorder, but
only one in four adults and one in five children receive necessary treatment. We
know that when properly designed and administered, treatment for mental illness
is every bit as effective as treatment for physical illnesses. Yet, as a General
Accounting Office report found last year, many insurers continue to impose
limits on mental health benefits that are more restrictive than those for
medical or surgical benefits.
Left untreated, mental illness can take a
remarkable toll. The economic burden of mental illness in the United States is
$170 billion per year, yet the human cost born by individuals suffering from
such conditions, and on their families, cannot be estimated. Passage of S. 543
can help to ensure that individuals suffering from mental illness can receive
the treatment necessary for them to live in dignity and lead healthy, productive
lives.
D. Strengthen Working Families
There are a number of
other initiatives that would greatly contribute to the living standards of the
working poor. I would like to highlight three in particular, all of which are
included in S. 685, the "Strengthening Working Families Act," introduced in the
Senate by Senators Evan Bayh and Olympia J. Snowe.
First, S. 685 would
promote responsible fatherhood by funding programs designed to support and
sustain marriage, encourage non- custodial parents to become more involved in
the lives of their children, and provide job training and other services to help
non- custodial parents contribute to the support of their children. As a general
matter, children raised with the involvement of both parents develop fewer
behavioral problems, perform better in school, and experience higher levels of
sociability. In addition, children raised in two parent families are less likely
to be raised in poverty. For those reasons, we strongly support programs that
seek to increase the number of fathers who are involved in their children's
lives.
Second, the bill would allow states to "pass through" child
support payments directly to custodial parents and their children. Under current
law, a family receiving cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (
TANF) program is required to assign to the state its
right to child support payments during the assistance period. This can be
discouraging for non-custodial parents who pay support for their children, only
to see the money retained by the state instead. For families that are struggling
to become self-sufficient, child support payments can provide a critical boost.
Indeed, studies have shown that when households headed by single mothers receive
child support payments, their poverty rate drops from 33 percent to 22 percent.9
By allowing for a child support pass through, Congress can ensure that child
support paid by non-custodial parents, primarily fathers, reaches the children
who need it, and can give low-income families the help they need to succeed
without welfare.
And third, the bill would increase the Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income families with three or more children and
simplify the EITC rules, thus improving taxpayer compliance and reducing error
rates. The EITC is the only individual tax credit that provides a federal
payment when a filer's tax credit exceeds income tax liability, lifting 2.6
million children out of poverty while encouraging work. While middle income and
affluent families get the full benefit of the personal exemption for all of
their children, low-income working parents receive the EITC for only a maximum
of two children. Child poverty rates are significantly higher among families
with three or more children (28.6 percent) than families with two children (12.4
percent).
EITC's proven role in lifting families out of poverty,
expanding the credit for families with more than two children is an important
step in addressing this problem. (The bill also restores the Social Services
Block Grant, an issue discussed in Section II.B. above.)
III. Congress
Should Make
TANF Work Better for Low-Income Families Most
low-income families are not receiving, and have never received, welfare
benefits. Yet we cannot adequately address the problems of all low-income
families if we don't consider the needs of parents who are struggling to make
the transition from welfare to work. In less than one month, we will observe the
five-year anniversary of the creation of the Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families Program (
TANF). As this anniversary approaches,
pundits and policymakers will be debating whether welfare reform has been a
success or a failure. The answer to this question depends, in large part, on
what we define as success.
If the goal of welfare reform was to reduce
welfare caseloads, it is difficult to argue that
TANF has not
succeeded. Between 1994 and 1999, welfare caseloads were cut in half. For many,
that is all the proof they need that welfare reform has worked. If, however, the
goal of welfare reform was to lift people out of poverty, and to help them live
their lives in dignity, the conclusion is not so simple. In 1994, Catholic
Charities USA issued a position paper on welfare reform, titled Transforming the
Welfare System. In that paper, we made the point that there is a difference
between making people work, and making work pay. The reports we receive from our
local agencies underscore this point. They tell us that, while parents are
leaving
TANF for work, the jobs they secure often keep them at
or near the federal poverty level. And the longer they are off cash assistance,
the more likely they are to lose the link to a number of important income
support programs, like food stamps or Medicaid, that can help them provide for
their families. It is then that they turn to churches and charities for help in
making ends meet.
A recent editorial from the Chicago Tribune
underscores the need for
TANF to provide more support to
working families. The editorial references a recent audit conducted by the state
of Wisconsin - a state that has done more than many others to support
individuals leaving the welfare rolls for work - which found that less than half
of those who left the welfare for work in early 1998 earned enough to lift them
above the official federal poverty threshold three years later.11 If that is
what is happening to welfare leavers in one of the states doing the most to
support work, it is clear that more must be done. The upcoming reauthorization
of
TANF provides us with a prime opportunity to make the
program more supportive of working parents. Among our recommendations for the
upcoming reauthorization are the following:
A. Poverty Reduction: First,
actual poverty reduction should be made an official purpose of the
TANF program, and states should be given bonuses tied to
poverty reduction. We know from past experience that states respond to fiscal
incentives when they are written into federal welfare law.
It is
important that poverty reduction under
TANF be calculated
according to a meaningful measure. We cannot evaluate poverty reduction using
the federal poverty guidelines. These guidelines are outdated, and no longer
provide a useful measurement of what a family requires to live without
assistance from government agencies or private charities. Federal poverty
guidelines are based on the premise that a family's primary expense is food.
Today's families spend the bulk of their income on housing and child care. Using
the federal poverty guidelines to measure poverty reduction would allow states
to collect rewards for reducing poverty without guaranteeing that more families
can survive on what they earn. Poverty reduction measures should be based on
progress toward a living wage, one that represents what families need in their
own communities to make ends meet.
B.
Education and
Training: Congress must find a way to ensure that families on
TANF have an opportunity to move up the wage ladder. Too often,
parents leave
TANF for low-skill, low-paying positions that may
never lead to a living wage. This can be addressed by providing
TANF parents with better access to continuing
education - particularly post-secondary
education - and job training programs. Numerous studies have
shown that, for women leaving welfare,
education beyond high
school is a key factor in moving up the economic ladder. Yet as a general rule,
TANF policies have not allowed recipients to pursue post-
secondary educational activities. In light of the evidence demonstrating that
better
education leads to better outcomes, it is
counterproductive to put in place policies that discourage or fail to support
higher learning. Congress should take steps to encourage programs like Maine's
"Parents as Scholars," which stops the
TANF clock while
recipients pursue post-secondary
education. Wyoming also has a
similar program in place.
C. Wage Supports: States should be provided
with strong incentives to use
TANF funds to provide workers
with wage supplements. These stipend payments can help families meet work
expenses or other needs that their minimum wage earnings are insufficient to
handle. Texas recently initiated a program to provide families with stipends of
at least $1200 per year to meet work expenses.
D. Transitional Benefits:
While many families remain eligible for health care, food and child care
assistance, they have been losing these vital supports upon leaving
TANF, due to widespread confusion and the existence of numerous
administrative barriers. States should be required to automatically enroll
families leaving
TANF for work for one full year in the Food
Stamps Program, Medicaid, and child care assistance programs. Almost two- thirds
of families leaving
TANF do not receive food stamps in the six
months after leaving welfare, although numerous studies show that most continue
to live below the poverty line and even more fall within the Food Stamp
Program's income limit (130% of the poverty level). Many don't realize they are
still eligible, and the states don't do a good job of telling them. Many can't
afford to take a day off from their new jobs to go down to the welfare office
and apply in person. States should automatically provide the family with the
same level of food stamp benefits that it was receiving while on
TANF for a period of 12 months. States should not make it
difficult for the family by imposing additional administrative requirements. The
TANF computer should simply tell the Food Stamp computer that
this family is eligible, and the family should be issued an electronic benefit
card or food stamps.
Similarly, families leaving welfare for work are
currently eligible for up to one year of transitional Medicaid coverage, but
they often aren't getting it, for the same reasons they aren't getting Food
Stamps - they aren't aware they are eligible, or they aren't able to satisfy
burdensome requirements. Again, the
TANF computer should simply
see to it that the family leaving for work is issued a Medicaid card covering
all members of the family for a full year.
Finally, a parent's ability
to secure child care is a crucial factor in determining whether the family will
succeed in the transition from
TANF; yet only 30% of families
leaving
TANF receive child care assistance. As a condition of
receiving the federal funds available each year through the Child Care
Development Fund block grant, Congress should require states to guarantee child
care assistance to families making the transition from
TANF
(and to make that guarantee known). Of course, any federal child care
requirement would need to be accompanied by an increase in funding of the Child
Care and Development Fund, and contain appropriate safeguards to ensure that the
guarantee of assistance to families leaving
TANF does not crowd
out child care and other assistance to families currently on
TANF. E. Food Stamp Reform: In addition to providing
transitional food stamp benefits, states should be required to encourage working
families to apply for food stamp benefits, and to simplify their application
procedures so families can access the benefits to which they are entitled.
Working adults cannot afford to spend a full day at the welfare office every few
months, filling out a 26 page application, supplying 14 kinds of verification,
and enduring the condescension of the eligibility worker. To do so is to risk
not only a day's wages, but also quite possibly a job. When you consider that
current rules in many states require working parents on food stamps to reapply
in person every three months, it is no wonder that less than half of eligible
households are participating in the program. Families should be able to apply
for food stamps by mail with income verified by employers, if necessary, to
avoid the necessity of losing time from work for an interview. States should
also make efforts to develop and implement a comprehensive communications
strategy informing families that their food stamp eligibility is not affected by
the
TANF time limits.
F. Restoration of Benefits For
Legal Immigrants: Congress should also act to ameliorate some of the harshest
provisions of the 1996 welfare law: those provisions barring legal immigrants
who entered the country after August 22, 1996, from receiving public benefits.
At a minimum, Congress should restore eligibility for Medicaid, SCHIP and food
stamp benefits to legal immigrant children and pregnant women. Under current
law, pregnant women and children who are legal residents and arrived in the
United States after August 22, 1996, are barred for five years from receiving
Medicaid and SCHIP benefits. Pregnant women and sick children cannot wait five
years to get the medical attention they need. The important goals of Medicaid
and SCHIP are undermined when states are not permitted to use federal funds to
provide preventive and other basic health care services to lawfully present
immigrants.
Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Henry Waxman, and
Senators Bob Graham, Lincoln Chafee and John McCain have introduced the "Legal
Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act" (H.R. 1143/S. 582)12 , which gives
states the option to extend Medicaid and SCHIP benefits to these women and
children. Congress can lessen the chance that these children will develop
long-term and chronic health problems, and instead help guarantee that they can
become productive members of our society.
Similarly, a growing child's
need for adequate nutrition is not lessened merely because the child is a legal
immigrant. The Food Stamp Program, by supplementing the limited purchasing power
of low-income households, helps to alleviate hunger and malnutrition for poor
individuals and their families. While our nation as a whole is enjoying great
prosperity, too many working families, including legal immigrant working
families, have not shared in that prosperity. Their daily labors make life
easier for all of us, but their take-home pay is often insufficient to cover
rent, child care, clothing and transportation costs, and still have enough left
to pay for their food. Representative James T. Walsh, and Senators Edward M.
Kennedy and James M. Jeffords have introduced the "Nutrition Assistance for
Working Families and Seniors Act" (H.R. 2142/S. 583)13 , which would restore
Food Stamp benefits for legal immigrants, among other provisions. Passage of the
bill will ensure that these working families can provide their children with the
nutrition they need for healthy development.
Efforts to restore
Medicaid, SCHIP and Food Stamp benefits have broad bipartisan support and
further basic notions of fairness and common sense. According to the National
Academy of Sciences, the average immigrant contributes $1,800 each year more in
taxes than he or she costs federal, state and local governments. Immigrants pay
taxes to support services to others; they too should have access to assistance
when they fall ill. In addition, the babies born to legal immigrant mothers will
automatically be U.S. citizens upon their birth and will immediately be eligible
for federally supported health care. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, the
costs of prenatal care and adequate nutrition for legal immigrant mothers will
be offset by reduced Medicaid costs for their babies. Indeed, the U.S. saves $3
for every $1 it spends on prenatal care. Even more important, these newest
little citizens should get a healthy start in life.
IV. Congress Should
Address the Needs of Undocumented Workers, and Enforce Fair Labor Standards for
all Workers:
Before I conclude, I would like to say a few words about
segment of low-income working families that is all too often overlooked:
undocumented workers. According to a study conducted by the Urban Institute,
more immigrants entered the United States in the 1990's (roughly eleven million
people) than in any decade ever. These newcomers have helped to fuel and sustain
an unprecedented growing American economy. However, according to this same
study, in 1999, 21.3 percent of foreign-born non-citizens lived below the
federal poverty level, compared to 11.2 percent of those of us who are
native-born Americans.
The millions of workers who come to this country
without documents have not done so on a lark. They have risked paying the
ultimate penalty to come to America and work for sub-minimum wages, in inhumane
conditions, just so that their children and their families can have a chance at
survival. They are often openly welcomed by businesses, as they are willing to
perform tasks that you or I would turn our noses up at. Indeed, everyone in this
room has a better quality of life because of their presence. Despite their
contributions to our society, non-citizen immigrants are allowed to live in
poverty and are exploited at every possible opportunity. Along with
subsistence-level wages, our local Charities agencies all across the country
tell us that the non-citizen immigrant families they serve are subjected to poor
housing conditions, a high level of hazardous working conditions, and a lack of
affordable health care. Most of these injustices can be effectively dealt with
if these non-citizen immigrants were allowed to become legal permanent residents
and work legally in this country. Such a move would allow them to be covered by
wage and hour laws.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I want to thank
this Committee for focusing attention on the growing problem of working families
who simply aren't able to make ends meet. It does not seem right that families
who work hard and play by the rules remain unable to save money for their
children's college
education, to buy their own home, or to
otherwise pursue the American dream, because they are too busy trying to keep
the wolf from the door. For these families, the daily dilemmas they face are
ones that are foreign to most on this Committee: Will I pay the heating bill, or
buy clothes for my children? Will I pay the rent, or fix the car I need to get
to work? Do I go to see a doctor for my nagging illness, when I know I will need
that money to buy food? But as workers at Catholic Charities agencies throughout
the country can tell you, these dilemmas are all too real. It is our hope that
today's hearing will lead to enactment of proposals that will address the
growing disparity between rich and poor, and give low- income workers the help
they need to not only survive, but to thrive.
LOAD-DATE: August 8, 2001