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Congressional Testimony
April 11, 2002 Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 5731 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE:
HUMAN RESOURCE
HEADLINE: WELFARE OVERHAUL PROPOSALS
TESTIMONY-BY: KATHLEEN A. CURRAN,, POLICY ADVISOR,
AFFILIATION: UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC
BISHOPS
BODY: Statement of
Kathleen A.
Curran, Policy Advisor, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on Welfare Reform
Reauthorization Proposals
April 11, 2002
Chairman Herger and
Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Kathleen A. Curran and I am policy
advisor on health and welfare issues with the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops' (USCCB). I welcome this opportunity to share with you the
views of the Bishops' Conference as you consider proposals for reauthorization
of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program
(
TANF).
In the 1990s, we as a nation reexamined the
welfare structure that had evolved over several decades, and called for a reform
of the way in which we help those among us in need. Our Conference was among
those urging fundamental reform of a system that did not serve recipients,
taxpayers or our society as well as it should have. The debate over how to
change that system culminated in the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, replacing the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children entitlement program with
TANF block grants
to the states, a time-limited assistance program focusing heavily on reducing
welfare caseloads and moving people into work. While it is encouraging that
caseloads have fallen by over 50% through fiscal year 2001, it is clear that not
all recipients who leave
TANF do so to take a job of any sort,
let alone stable full-time work that allows them to support their families in
dignity. In considering whether and how to amend
TANF, facts
and figures, numbers and statistics can be necessary and important tools, both
in assessing the effects so far of the 1996 law and in developing new policies
and new ways to measure future effects. But I urge you to remember that is all
they are -- tools. Simply setting, meeting and assessing numerical goals B
whether for reducing caseloads, boosting work participation rates or increasing
the incidence of marriage B must not become the measure of our nations welfare
policy. We must not lose sight of the real families, real individuals, real
children whose lives will be deeply affected by the changes that will be made in
TANF. We must seize the need to reauthorize the
TANF program as an opportunity, and a challenge, to sharpen our
focus on the persistent problem of poverty in this, the most prosperous of
nations. We must do our best to make sure no one who works in this country will
see their family in need. We must give states the policy tools and resources
they need to help low-income Americans leave poverty and dependence and achieve
self-sufficiency.
Thus, as the nation turns to
TANF
reauthorization, we must make clear that reducing poverty, especially among
children, is a central goal of our national welfare policy. We can do this in
two ways. First, we should amend the law to include poverty reduction among the
stated goals and develop appropriate incentives for states to reduce the extent
and depth of poverty within their borders. Second, we should assess welfare
policies, both current and proposed, by whether they will be effective in
alleviating the poverty of our sisters and brothers and in helping them to
improve their own lives and the lives of their families.
The central
challenge we face is not just people in need of help, but the tragedy of so many
families living without dignity and hope in our nation. While some would focus
instead on child well- being, these goals are not contradictory. There ought to
be a way bring together both goals, measuring welfare reform by how it reduces
poverty in a land of plenty and how it improves the lives of its children.
Principles For Welfare Reform
The Administrative Board of the
Bishops' Conference articulated principles for welfare reform in 1995 which
retain their relevance today. I reiterate what the Bishops said then: the
Conference's intent in offering its reflection on welfare policy is not to align
itself with a particular partisan or ideological agenda. We draw our directions
from consistent Catholic moral principles, guided by traditional values: respect
for human life and dignity; the importance of family and the value of work; an
option for the poor and the call to participation; and the principles of
subsidiarity and solidarity.
We also draw upon the Church's experience
living with, serving, and being the poor among us. The poor are our neighbors
and our parishioners. The Catholic community, perhaps the largest
nongovernmental provider of human services to poor families, meets the poor in
our soup kitchens, shelters and Catholic Charities agencies. Our community has
lived with the realities of welfare reform, encouraging and helping people to
make the transition from welfare to work. But we also live with those who are
left behind, who turn to our parishes, eat in our soup kitchens, sleep in our
shelters and ask for our help. Some are moving ahead and we welcome and
celebrate their progress. But some are left behind and this is the unfinished
task for our nation, which seeks "liberty and justice for all."
In light
of our principles and our everyday experiences, our Conference will apply six
principles in evaluating proposals for changes during
TANF
reauthorization. We urge lawmakers to enact polices that:
Protect human
life and human dignity: A fundamental criterion for all public policy, including
welfare policy, is respect for human life and human dignity. In particular, we
must protect the lives and dignity of vulnerable children, whether born or
unborn, and develop policies that safeguard children and discourage
inappropriate or morally destructive behavior
Strengthen family life:
Our welfare policy should affirm the importance of marriage, strong intact
families, personal responsibility, self-discipline, sacrifice and basic
morality. It should help mothers and fathers meet the social, economic,
educational and moral needs of their children. We should strive to keep
marriages strong and families together, and, when that is not possible, to keep
fathers involved in the lives of their children in a healthy and constructive
manner.
Encourage and reward work: Those who can work, should work. Work
is the means by which individuals support themselves and their families,
participate in Gods creation, express their dignity, and contribute to the
common good of society. The challenge is to ensure that our nations policies
support productive work with wages and benefits that permit a family to live in
dignity.
Preserve a safety net for the vulnerable: Society has a
responsibility to help meet the needs of those who cannot care for themselves,
who through no fault of their own cannot work or whose work is caring for young
children or disabled family members. Our policies should help and sustain the
most vulnerable among us, enhancing the ability of all children, including
immigrant children, to grow into productive adults. Legal immigrants should be
eligible for benefits on the same terms as citizens, and the children of
undocumented persons should not be left without help.
Build
public/private partnerships to overcome poverty: Overcoming poverty and
dependency requires creative, responsive and effective actions in both the
public and private sectors. Under the
TANF block grants, states
have been given a high degree of flexibility in shaping programs to meet the
needs of their populations and to draw more upon the skill and responsiveness of
community institutions. We must strive to achieve and preserve the appropriate
balance between the roles of the federal and state governments and private
entities in fighting poverty. This is why we support the Presidents faith-based
and community initiatives proposal. While we support the active role of states
and of faith?based and community groups, their efforts cannot replace the
important responsibility of the federal government, on behalf of our entire
society, to establish just public policy and to commit sufficient national
resources to meet the basic needs of the American people.
Invest in
human dignity: To continue and complete the work of welfare reform begun in
1996, we will continue to need significant public investment in
TANF. We cannot let declining caseloads deceive us into
thinking we can reduce
TANF block grants. The commitment and
effort of individuals seeking to leave welfare for work, poverty for
self-sufficiency, must be met by a public commitment to provide the jobs,
training,
education, child care, health care, transportation
and other supports necessary to make that transition successfully.
In
pursuing these principles, we urge the Congress to avoid casting
TANF reauthorization in terms of false choices that will
diminish public debate and peoples' lives. Refuse to pose welfare reform as a
choice between encouraging greater responsibility or accepting greater social
responsibility B both are necessary to help families overcome poverty. Refuse to
pose welfare reform as a choice between investing in decent work, child care,
and
education and training, or recognizing the importance of
healthy marriages and responsible parenthood B both are necessary to improve
children's lives. Children's lives and their hope for the future are enhanced or
diminished by the choices of their parents and the polices of their government.
Reauthorization is an opportunity to improve
TANF to encourage
wise choices by their families and wise investments by our nation in decent
work, child care, and
education and training.
Do not
draw our circle of concern too tightly. Single parents and two parent couples
struggle to raise their families in dignity. The children of parents who were
born here and of those who came here to escape poverty and conflict are equally
deserving of our help. Help not only those who can move from welfare to work
with a little push and minimal assistance, but also those trapped without skills
or
education or facing addiction or disability. Do not be
afraid to insist on performance and commitment from states as well as families
in need, holding states accountable for programs that help people not only leave
dependency, but also to leave poverty behind.
Lastly, avoid an overly
ideological, polarized and partisan debate over
TANF
reauthorization that will only undermine the steps our nation must take to
overcome poverty and restore human dignity for our families and children.
A Strategy For Addressing Poverty Through
TANF
Reauthorization
With these principles in mind, we urge that a central
goal for
TANF reauthorization should be to address the moral
scandal of so much poverty in the richest nation on earth. To accomplish this,
TANF should seek to reduce poverty through a three-pronged
strategy of supporting meaningful work, strengthening family life and marriage,
and sustaining the needy and vulnerable among us, especially our children; and
to ensure adequate resources to accomplish these goals by committing to
TANF funding levels at least equal to current levels adjusted
for inflation. I would like to suggest some policy directions in each of these
three areas, touching on only some of the many issues that
TANF
reauthorization will encompass. I am pleased to note that several of these ideas
are reflected in various of the reauthorization proposals that have already been
put forward.
Supporting Meaningful Work
1. Expand the definition
of work to include
education and substance abuse treatment:
TANF recipients need more than just any job B they need a
pathway out of poverty, and for many that means access to
education and job training, and in some cases, substance abuse
treatment, as well as a job. Under current law, individuals may count only
vocational
education training towards work participation, for a
maximum of 12 months, and states may allow no more than 30% of their caseload to
do so. But serious efforts to get a college degree or overcome an addiction is
hard work and should be recognized as such. States should have greater
flexibility to count job training, vocational and post-secondary
education and substance abuse treatment towards work
requirements, alone or in conjunction with an employment requirement. For
instance, states could be given the option to allow participants to count
education towards work after a one or two year period of
employment.
Several of the current reauthorization proposals include
ideas in this area which deserve support. For example, most of them include some
provision for allowing states to count as work activities, for limited periods
of time, substance abuse or other programs to address work obstacles. We hope
the final legislation will include similar provisions, and in the case of
substance abuse, will give states the flexibility to include longer treatment
programs of up to nine months. With respect to educational activities, allowing
states to count 24 months of vocational and educational training as work, or
allowing states to have a percentage of
TANF recipients in
so-called "Parents as Scholars" programs, combining work and post-secondary
education, are promising ideas found in current proposals.
2. Ensure that those leaving welfare have access to transitional
benefits: Food and basic health care are essential building blocks for life. As
welfare recipients make the transition from cash assistance to relying on work
income alone, access to noncash benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid can
mean the difference between success or failure, hunger and illness or progress.
The law should ensure that welfare leavers have automatic and meaningful access
to Medicaid and food stamps for a full year after they leave
TANF.
TANF leavers are eligible for one-year transitional Medicaid coverage;
they should be automatically eligible for food stamps for one year as well.
In addition to granting automatic eligibility, states should be required
to make sure those leaving
TANF understand that they are
eligible for these benefits and that they are able to access them. Studies have
indicated that former welfare recipients who are eligible for but do not receive
food stamps and Medicaid often do not realize they are eligible, or are unable
to navigate complicated administrative requirements, including midday
appointments at state offices forcing them to miss work. States must streamline
their processes so new workers do not have to choose between obtaining needed
benefits and keeping their jobs, between work and feeding their families,
between employment and health care.
3. Child care assistance: Finding
and paying for adequate child care can be one of the biggest challenges facing
parents trying to move from welfare to work. The problem is exacerbated for
parents who must work weekend or night shift jobs, times when child care is
particularly hard to find. As with food stamps and Medicaid, many families
leaving
TANF do not receive child care assistance even though
they are eligible. We must make sure all working parents have access to safe,
affordable child care at the times they need it by increasing funding for
federal child care assistance programs such as the Child Care and Development
Block Grant (which must also be reauthorized next year) and the Social Services
Block Grant, by making sure low-income parents know they are eligible, and by
increasing the availability of adequate child care facilities. Several
reauthorization proposals call for additional CCDBG funding, and we urge the
Subcommittee to incorporate additional resources for child care in its
TANF legislation.
4. Flexibility in time limits: A
five-year time limit on federally-funded cash assistance was one of the
hallmarks of the 1996 law, and for many time limits appear to have provided the
motivation needed to get into, or back into, the workforce. But for others,
especially those who must overcome many obstacles to work, time limits can be
arbitrary and punitive. I urge you to look seriously at ways to give states more
flexibility in how they apply time limits while continuing to use federal
TANF funds, so they can make time limits work for all
recipients. For example, states could have the option to "stop the clock" B to
continue providing cash assistance to recipients complying with work
requirements and not count those months towards the five- year time limit. Or
states could experiment with allowing working
TANF participants
to "earn back" time against the time limit. States could be given the option of
granting extensions to the five-year time limit, for example when a downturn in
the economy means working former participants face layoffs and the inability to
find work despite their best efforts.
5. Caution in modifying work
requirements: Under current law, states must have 50% of families that receive
TANF engaged in specified "work activities" for a total of 30
hours per week, with a shorter list of activities countable for the first 20
hours. (Single parents of children under six need work only a total of 20 hours
per week to be counted, and higher standards apply to two-parent families.)
States are eligible for a credit that reduces the 50% work participation
requirement B a percentage reduction in total caseloads earns an equal reduction
in the participation rate requirement. Caseloads have fallen so significantly
that most states were subject to minimal or even no work participation
requirement. Nonetheless, on average states had 34% of their caseloads meeting
the work requirements in 2000.
Among the proposals for
TANF reauthorization that have been put forward, two would
increase both the work participation rates that states must meet (from 50% to
70%) and the hours of activities individuals must engage in to be counted
towards the work participation rates (from 30 hours to 40 hours per week). In
one proposal, the first 24 hours would be limited to employment, work experience
or community service activities, with no flexibility to include job search or
vocational
education activities (which are now allowed to count
toward the first 20 hours of the 30 hour requirement.) Both proposals would end
the caseload reduction credit. (In one proposal, the caseload reduction credit
would be replaced by a new employment credit, a promising idea we urge you to
pursue.)
While we support continuing
TANFs emphasis on
work, we share the serious concerns that have been raised about whether current
proposals that combine these three elements B increasing state participation
rates, increasing hours per week, and ending the caseload reduction credit B are
achievable and whether they would limit the flexibility of the states to
continue the programs they have developed to implement welfare reform in a way
that meet the needs of their people. Given the potential impact of such changes
in the work requirements, we urge Congress not to adopt an approach that
combines these elements as currently proposed.
For the most part, states
appear to have preferred to focus on getting recipients into employment, over
establishing large work experience or community service programs. Two-thirds of
the recipients who counted towards work participation rates in FY 2000 were
pursuing unsubsidized employment, while 10.6% were in work experience and 6.4%
were doing community service. Studies of welfare-to-work programs in the 1990s
indicate that programs combining a range of strategies and services, including
mandatory work, job search, life skills, and work-focused
education and training, were more successful at moving
recipients off of welfare and into work than more rigid programs that used only
one strategy.
The combined impact of the proposed changes in the work
requirements would almost certainly force states to divert more resources to
developing large-scale work-experience or community service programs to ensure
that the new work targets would be met. States would also have to find ways to
increase spending on child care B more single parents would have to spend more
hours each week engaged in activities and away from their children. Unless such
changes were accompanied by significant increases in the
TANF
block grants and for child care programs, states would face the prospect of
having to turn programs designed to get people into employment, into programs
that simply keep people busy for the required number of hours, and to focus
their child care spending on
TANF recipients, at the expense of
other low- income workers.
Press reports of a recent survey of states by
the National Governors Association and the American Public Health Services
Association indicate that states are concerned about the impact of such
proposals. According to the reports, 39 of the 44 states participating in the
survey fear these increased work requirements would be counterproductive,
undermining their efforts to end welfare dependency by moving recipients into
the workforce. They are also worried that meeting such requirements would limit
their ability to dedicate resources to work supports such as training, child
care and transportation services.
The intent of such proposals appears
to be to ensure that
TANF retains a strong "work-first"
emphasis, by seeing to it that recipients are engaged in a full workweek of
activity. The assumption is that 40 hours of activities per week constitutes a
full workweek. But for many American workers, especially those in the kinds of
jobs
TANF recipients are likely to have, the average workweek
is 35 hours or less. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) considers 35
hours per week to constitutes full-time work, and reports that in 2001 service
sector workers averaged under 33 hours per week, while retail-sector workers on
average worked just under 29 hours per week. BLS data also indicates that 24.1%
of American workers Band one-third of unmarried women B work fewer than 35 hours
per week. When gathering these data, BLS counts as hours worked paid-leave time,
such as sick leave or vacation. It does not appear that holiday, sick time or
other forms of necessary time-off would count towards the proposed higher 40
hour
TANF requirement. This would be a particular hardship for
TANF recipients, who tend to face more of the kinds of
obstacles that require time away from work, such as child care crises, care
giving for sick or disabled relatives, and the need to interact with the
benefits system during office hours. Thus, requiring
TANF
recipients to engage in 40 hours of activities per week actually holds them to a
higher standard than many other parents who work.
Strengthening Family
Life and Marriage
1. Affirm the value of marriage, but do not abandon
single parent families: For decades, our welfare policy actively discouraged the
formation and maintenance of two-parent married families. One valuable aspect of
the 1996 welfare reform law was the recognition that our national policies must
support families, not undermine them, and help parents in meeting their
responsibilities to their children. The Catholic community has consistently
affirmed the vital importance of marriage for raising children. Children do
better economically, emotionally, and spiritually when raised by both parents in
the context of a stable, healthy marriage. Out-of-wedlock birth and divorce
significantly diminish the well-being of our children. We must make appropriate
efforts to encourage abstinence before marriage, to assist single parents
considering marriage and to help married parents to stay together.
Yet
we also recognize that many factors in our society, such as the widespread
tragedy of divorce and the realities of domestic violence and destructive
behavior, leave many single parents struggling to support children on their own.
Single parents deserve our help, too, without feeling coerced into entering into
inappropriate marriages or staying in dangerous relationships. It is essential
that we both provide the resources necessary to enable all parents, married or
single, to meet the needs of their families, and develop appropriate policies to
support and strengthen marriage.
2. Remove barriers and disincentives to
two-parent families. We should all be able to agree that the first step in a
pro-marriage policy should be to end penalties against two-parent families
struggling to meet their responsibilities. Many states continue to implement
pre-
TANF policies that make it harder for two-parent families
to qualify for and receive
TANF assistance. For example,
two-parent families may be forced to wait longer for benefits to begin than
single-parent families, or be disqualified because of the parents' recent work
history, even if the family's income is below the poverty level. Congress should
require states to discontinue policies, such as these, that act as a
disincentive to marriage. Congress should also end the separate, more stringent
work participation rate requirements for two-parent families in
TANF itself.
3. Help States Do More to Support
Effective Marriage Programs: States currently have the authority to spend
TANF funds on marriage support programs, and should be
encouraged to assist low- income married couples who would benefit from marital
counseling or marriage-skills programs. For example, our colleagues at Catholic
Charities USA have developed a promising proposal to create a
$
100 million grant program through which states could help
low-income parents who are married, or who seek to marry, gain access to
services they other wise might not be able to afford, such as marriage
counseling, relationship skills classes, premarital counseling and marriage
preparation, marriage-skills classes.
While many groups and faith-based
organizations, including our Church, sponsor a range of marriage-support
programs, we have much to learn about what strategies are most effective in
addressing specific problems. Investing modest amounts of funding for
demonstration and pilot programs to identify "best practices" and for a
clearinghouse on effective programs would help states get information they need
to assess and implement effective and appropriate marriage and family formation
programs. We are pleased that several of the reauthorization proposals would
create funding for these purposes.
While we believe it is appropriate to
take measured steps to encourage and help states to do more to support marriage,
lawmakers need to evaluate every proposal to be sure it would not have the
unintended effect of forcing or pressuring couples into marriage. Congress
should be wary, for example, of measuring state progress in this area in a
manner that relies too much on simply counting the number of marriages or the
numbers of children living with married parents.
In sum, we urge you to
seek out policies that encourage and assist states to support marriage and to
work with unwed parents who wish to marry, but efforts to promote marriage
should not come at the expense of single parents or their children, either
directly or indirectly, by diverting essential resources or inadvertently
pressuring people into inappropriate marriages. We support efforts to reward all
parents for making wise choices, but must not punish children for the choices of
their parents.
4. Involve non-custodial fathers in their children's
lives. When parents are not married, we must find ways to encourage the active
presence of both parents in the lives of their children. Most often, that means
keeping non-custodial fathers involved with their children. As with
marriage-support programs,
TANF should assist states to
identify and support effective fatherhood programs that help fathers develop the
economic and emotional capacity to support their children. The law should be
amended so that child support paid by non-custodial fathers actually goes to
support their children on
TANF. Under current law, a mother
receiving
TANF must assign her child support rights to the
state, which retains and shares with the federal government most or all of any
amounts it collects from the father. Allowing more of the fathers child support
payment to reach his children will be both an economic boost for the children
and an incentive for the father to remain engaged in his children's lives, and
we are pleased that several reauthorization proposals would make progress on
this front.
Sustaining the Needy and Vulnerable
1. End state
family cap laws: Twenty-three states restrict or deny additional cash benefits
when a
TANF family's size increases because of the birth of a
baby. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has long opposed such policies
because of deep concern about their impact on the well-being of children, both
born and unborn. Evidence from a study of New Jerseys experience with a family
cap indicates that the policy was accompanied by more abortions in that state. A
recent GAO study notes that in an average month in 2000, about 108,000 families
received less in cash benefits due to family cap policies. We urge Congress to
amend
TANF to ban state family cap policies on pro-life and
pro- family principles. States should not be allowed to tell women they will pay
for their abortions, but will not help them support new children. A policy that
effectively penalizes certain families for having a new child cannot be seen as
pro-family.
2. Restore benefit eligibility to legal immigrants: A major
reason our Conference opposed the 1996 law was its harsh treatment of legal
immigrants. In 1996, legal immigrants were categorically barred from pubic
benefits programs. We have worked to achieve changes in the law, which restored
eligibility for some legal immigrants who entered the United States before 1996,
but did not cover the majority of legal immigrants, especially those who entered
the United States after August, 1996. The Bishops' Conference has long advocated
for the availability of basic necessities to all those in need, regardless of
their race, creed, ethnic origin, or nationality. Furthermore, legal immigrants
pay taxes and make significant contributions to our economy with their labor. As
a matter of justice, when people are in need, especially children, they should
have access to the public programs supported by their families' taxes.
3. Allow
TANF recipients to care for young children and
disabled family members: Young children, the sick and the disabled are among our
society's most vulnerable members. Their well-being often depends upon the
ability of parents and family members to take care of them on a full-time basis.
Yet under current law those same parents and family members may be forced to
work outside the home or face the loss of the cash assistance their family needs
to survive. Congress should amend the law so states have the option of using
federal funds to continue cash assistance to full-time care givers for children
under six or seriously ill or disabled family members. This could be done by
allowing such activities to count toward work participation requirements or
allowing states to exempt such care givers from time limits.
4.
Ameliorate harsh sanction policies: It is no easy matter to develop welfare
policy that ensures assistance for the needy without enabling the dependency of
those who can and should support themselves. But we cannot abandon those among
us who cannot help themselves, or who, with a little more time, patience and
assistance, would be able to help themselves and their families. Our goal must
be to ensure that no one falls through the cracks of federal or state
bureaucracies. To that end, we urge Congress to take a careful look at
TANF sanction polices.
There are strong indications
that many sanctioned families have multiple barriers to work B little or no
education, and more incidence of substance abuse, family
violence, and mental and physical health problems, and child care and
transportation difficulties. States currently have great latitude in
implementing sanction policies, with little accountability. Thirty-seven states
use "full-family" sanctions, cutting benefits to the entire family when one
member violates the
TANF rules. Nineteen states will impose a
full-family sanction for a first violation, and eight of those states apply a
minimum penalty period, so the entire family may continue to be denied benefits
even after the violation has been remedied. There is also evidence that many
states do a poor job of communicating to participants what is expected of them,
the consequences of failing to meet those expectations, and how to get help in
coming back into compliance.
Congress should consider changes to the law
to ameliorate arbitrary and counterproductive sanction policies, such as
requiring states to provide clear, understandable information to all recipients
on what is required of them and the sanctions they face if they violate those
requirements; to identify and work with families at risk of sanctions; to end
full-family sanctions for a first violation; and to restore benefits immediately
when a violation has been remedied. We also must require more accountability
from states, particularly because
TANF incentives to decrease
caseloads can also be an incentive for a state to ignore high sanction rates.
But high sanction rates in a state should be a warning sign, not a rewarded
behavior. States, as well as families, should be held to meet their
responsibilities.
Thank you for the opportunity to share the Bishops'
Conferences principles and policies on
TANF reauthorization.
Together our nation must all strive to create a truly flexible system of
incentives and accountability for both individuals and states, a system which
empowers a partnership of government agencies, community groups and recipients
to meet the needs of individual families and to give them the tools they need to
leave poverty and government assistance. The moral measure of our society is how
we treat "the least among us." (Matt. 25). The reauthorization of
TANF represents a major opportunity to make overcoming poverty
and restoring human dignity central national priorities. The Bishops' Conference
looks forward to working with this Subcommittee and Congress on these and other
important aspects of welfare policy in the coming months.
LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2002