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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
April 11, 2002 Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1222 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE:
HUMAN RESOURCE
HEADLINE: WELFARE OVERHAUL PROPOSALS
TESTIMONY-BY: REV. DAVID BECKMANN,, PRESIDENT,
AFFILIATION: BREAD FOR THE WORLD
BODY: Statement of the
Rev. David Beckmann,
President, Bread for the World
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on
Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing
on Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals
April 11, 2002
My
name is Rev. David Beckmann, and I am president of Bread for the World. I
appreciate this opportunity to present testimony to the subcommittee about
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Bread for the World is a
grassroots, Christian citizens movement. Our membership is rooted in churches
all across the United States, and seeks justice for hungry and poor people in
the U.S. and in the poorest parts of the world. This year our 46,000 members -
people of deep Christian faith - are actively organizing a nation-wide letter
writing campaign. We expect Bread for the World members to generate over 150,000
letters urging their members of Congress to improve
TANF,
because we believe that welfare is a hunger issue. As an anti-hunger
organization, the
TANF law and the states'
TANF programs are of great importance to us. Census data show
that low-income households are more likely to experience hunger than other
households, and thus it is clear that reducing poverty in this country will
reduce hunger. And, let us not forget: nearly three quarters of all the people
receiving
TANF benefits are children.
Much of this
year's debate about
TANF will revolve around the question of
whether or not the 1996
TANF law was a success or a failure. We
believe that is the wrong question. Instead the debate should revolve around the
question of how we can improve
TANF so as to enable many more
families to leave hunger and poverty behind and attain long-term
self-sufficiency.
Bread for the World is not seeking to overturn the
TANF law or turn back the clock to pre-1996 times. Rather we
are seeking to amend the
TANF law in ways that will provide the
tools necessary for families to make the difficult transition from poverty to
self-sufficiency. We have looked carefully at the
TANF law and
experience, and we have identified four areas where we believe it can be
improved. These improvements are morally and practically the right thing to do:
1.Make poverty reduction an explicit goal of
TANF. The
current law is flawed in its inordinate attention to caseload reduction, when
the real issue that should claim our attention is poverty reduction. Poverty
continues to be a persistent reality in our nation, despite the economic boom of
the 1990s. Even though
TANF caseloads have declined, 31 million
people still live in poverty, including 11.6 million children, and all across
the country churches and soup kitchens are seeing dramatic increases in requests
for assistance. Reducing the
TANF rolls and putting people to
work has not cut deeply into the poverty rate, for two basic reasons: (a) 40% of
those leaving
TANF have neither jobs nor
TANF
benefits, and (b) many of the
TANF leavers who do have jobs are
working for very low wages. Work is good, and the vast majority of those on
welfare are eager to work, but leaving poverty behind and becoming
self-sufficient is even better.
To implement this step, we urge you to
require the states to develop a plan for reducing the extent and severity of
poverty among families participating in
TANF, and to include it
in their annual
TANF plans. This would add consideration of
progress toward poverty reduction as one of the factors in determining which
states receive bonuses for high-performance success.
2.Enhance the
long-term employability and self-sufficiency of
TANF
participants through increased
education and training
opportunities. Study after study shows that
TANF leavers who
are most successful in sustaining employment are those who have a technical or
two-year degree. According to the census, the more years of
education a woman completes, the less likely she is to live in
poverty.
To implement this step, we urge you to add participation in
post- secondary
education and training as an acceptable work
activity, and combine
education with work for those who need
longer to complete their training. Extend the time limit for exclusive
participation in
education and training to 24 months. Eliminate
the 30% cap on participation in
education and training, thus
giving states the flexibility they need to design programs that effectively move
people into sustainable jobs. Require states to work with each
TANF client to develop a self-sufficiency plan. Require states
to consider regional labor markets and seek workforce-training opportunities to
meet the needs of employers while also improving the wage outcomes of
TANF leavers. Reward states for success in training, placing
and retaining
TANF leavers in higher-wage jobs.
3.Create flexibility for states to help families who are finding the
path to independence difficult to manage.
TANF participants are
being pushed into low-wage jobs that do not provide sufficient income to support
a family, and thus they continue to need some types of assistance to make ends
meet. The average wage of an employed
TANF leaver is
$
6.75 per hour, far too low to support several dependents.
To implement this step, we urge you to exclude benefits to working
families from the lifetime sixty-month time-limit restrictions. Those who are
working at jobs should not lose their months of
TANF
eligibility while working. We also urge you to add disability and mental illness
to the list of specific hardships that some clients face in achieving
self-sufficiency.
4.Ensure adequate funding for
TANF
nationwide. Continuing the federal block grant at the same level for several
more years is just not adequate for this time of rising unemployment. To
implement this step, we urge you to index both the annual block grant and the
state funding requirements to inflation.
All of these improvements to
the
TANF program are contained in the Working from Poverty to
Promise Act of 2002, which will be introduced in the House this week with
bipartisan sponsorship. Please look carefully at that bill. We believe that the
incorporation of that bill into the final
TANF reauthorization
package will prove very effective in enabling millions of people to leave
poverty behind and achieve the promise of self- sufficiency.
Finally,
let me mention some of our concerns about President Bush's proposal. The
president's plan fails to recognize the enormous importance of
education and training in lifting people out of poverty, and
actually makes it more difficult for
TANF participants to
obtain
education and training. It provides no new resources for
childcare, even though it mandates increased work requirements, which means more
demand for childcare. It keeps the
TANF block grant at the 1996
level, despite the fact that inflation has eroded its value and states are
spending billions more than the block grant provides them. It strips flexibility
from the states in numerous ways. In short, the president's plan does not live
up to the rhetoric that surrounded its release. It fails to provide either the
resources or the programs that are necessary to help struggling families succeed
and thrive.
Thank you very much for considering these views. Bread for
the World would be pleased to provide additional information to you on any of
these points.
LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2002