SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 3101 words

COMMITTEE: HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS

HEADLINE: WELFARE TIME LIMITS AND WORK REQUIREMENTS

TESTIMONY-BY: JENNIFER REINERT,, SECRETARY,

AFFILIATION: WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

BODY:
Statement of the

Jennifer Reinert, Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Implementation of Welfare Reform Work Requirements and Time Limits

March 7, 2002

Introduction

Chairman Herger, Ranking Member Cardin and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to give Wisconsin's perspective on how TANF reauthorization can move the nation forward in our welfare reform efforts.

I venture to say that everyone of us in this room, and the legislatures and Governors of all 50 states share the same set of goals -- a reduced need for government assistance, full employment and healthy, self-sufficient families.

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act gave us the tools to work toward those shared goals and we've seen remarkable success as a result. The lessons learned in the past 5 1/2 years of administering the TANF program have added measurably to our base of knowledge. Some of our strategies for achieving desired outcomes have changed as a result. But the basic program elements are still there. The success of Wisconsin's TANF program, called Wisconsin Works or W- 2, stems from its work-focused philosophy, its wide range of work- training opportunities and work support, and its flexibility - all targeted at empowering parents to achieve personal responsibility for the welfare of their families. President Bush's reauthorization proposal retains the welfare-to work philosophy so fundamental to our reform efforts and leaves the funding levels and distribution formula unchanged. These are critical to helping states move to the next juncture of welfare reform. His proposal also introduces new program elements that will serve to enhance states' efforts. For example, the Program Integration Waiver brings new opportunities for states to break down the silos separating our work programs for the betterment of our service delivery system as a whole. And the philosophy of full-engagement is one of the cornerstones of the W-2 program which has been in place since implementation. Raising the bar on work participation will make a significant difference as long as states can retain the ability to decide what activities are most appropriate on a case-by-case basis.

W-2 Overview

The W-2 program is open to all of Wisconsin's low-income families including non-custodial parents with income under 115 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Once eligible, other sources of income such as receipt of child support, do not lower the individual's grant. The eligibility and job service provider functions are combined to allow the participants to develop a close relationship with one primary case manager. All adult W-2 participants are required to work to the very best of their ability. Like work, W-2 payments are based on participation, not on the number of children in the family. Each hour the individual fails to participate without good cause, the payment is reduced by the minimum wage of $5.15.

W-2 is a multi-level program we call our ladder of employment. There are four rungs on this ladder including:

Unsubsidized Employment: Applicants who are ready for an unsubsidized job do not receive a cash grant, but do receive supportive services and case management to help them find or maintain employment.

Trial Jobs: Employer receives a subsidy to provide on-the-job training to the participant. The participant receives regular employment wages and may be hired permanently by the employer upon successful completion of the trial job.

Community Service Job: Participants receive $673 per month in exchange for work training and educational activities.

W-2 Transitions: Participants with more severe barriers to work receive $628 per month in exchange for participation in appropriate activities that move the participant towards employment.

What has Wisconsin accomplished with the flexibility granted to us under TANF?

We are able to tailor employment services to the needs of the individual. States' continued flexibility here is most critical because no two families have the same set of service needs. W-2's unique approach combines education with a progression of subsidized work training placements, allowing participants to get the type of training they are most in need of. Everyone is required to participate to the extent his or her abilities allow. Parents who are found to have more severe barriers such as substance abuse, physical or mental health issues or domestic violence, are offered a legitimate opportunity to address their needs through counseling, treatment, or vocational rehabilitation.

Let's take a case example from Wisconsin: This is a 35- year old woman living in an urban area of Wisconsin. She struggles with both physical and psychological issues including a back problem that is aggravated by obesity, post traumatic stress syndrome, depression and panic attacks. She continues on medication for depression, pain, blood pressure, and muscle relaxants. While the W-2 agency is assisting her in an appeal for SSI benefits, they also continue to work with her on activities that may help her someday become self-sufficient. Activities include:

basic education studies - 12 hours per week with a goal of completing her General Equivalency Diploma;

Physical therapy, Dr's and dietitian appointments - 24 hours per week;

Mental Health Counseling - 2 hours per week;

Support groups for pain management and grief - 1 hour per week;

The next steps for the agency and this participant are a vocational evaluation and assessment and exploration of career goals when physical and mental health symptoms are under control. You see can see by this example, how critical it is for agencies to have discretion in determining what activities are most appropriate.

Once participants are employed, cash benefits end, but employment supports continue. Child care subsidies, family health care coverage, transportation assistance, Job Access Loans and case management provide working participants with a network of support services that help them stabilize and prosper in their new work environment. Through case management, case workers help newly hired participants think through their work related needs and develop a plan for such things as back-up child care arrangements, money management and reliable transportation.

We are engaging the whole community. Wisconsin's geographic diversity - ranging from small rural communities to urban, industrialized cities - calls for unique approaches that match the needs of participants with the local employment conditions. To accomplish this, partnerships have developed amongst W-2 providers, community based organizations, and employers, enabling communities to develop innovative solutions and communicate on a much broader level about problems that impact on their participants.

Many of our W-2 participants have multiple problems in their lives that require a network of support and guidance from outside sources. And this need for support carries over into the work place. In response, employers are providing mentoring relationships, specialized training, and job retention services that help these parents learn to balance the needs of their family and work. Business brings invaluable resources to the program in the form of employment opportunity, leadership, vision and financial support. Their participation is critical to sustaining a healthy community.

We have revolutionized how we do business with our local W-2 providers through out-come driven performance standards. A set of 15 performance standards deals with such measures as successful attachment to the workforce, educational activities attainment and increased earnings. Our Performance Standards impact on W-2 agencies' contract dollars and future eligibility to be granted a W-2 contract.

The competitive process to select the best and most enthusiastic providers is essential to W-2 and Performance Standards are what drives this process. How did we come to rely so heavily on this strategy? We took a step back and analyzed what administrative requirements were making the greatest impact on our program. In the end, we came to realize that if we tell agencies what outcomes we expect for our participants, they will find the means to make it happen. The flexibility and empowerment strategies combined with these performance standards and accountability are what made welfare reform such a success in Wisconsin.

We've invested in initiatives that not only support parent's entry into the workforce, but also more broadly help them work toward their career and life aspirations:

Workforce Attachment and Advancement: offers services designed to promote upward mobility for low-income working families and non- custodial parents. WAA provides job retention and training services, which are essential to improving employment stability and advancement to higher wage levels.

Literacy Initiative: established workplace and family literacy programs for low-income families to provide job-specific literacy and vocabulary skills to adults in the workplace; and provide child and family tutoring to improve the literacy skills of individual family members.

We have merged two major Divisions within the Department of Workforce Development enabling us to look at all of our workforce programs as a spectrum of services with the goal of promoting upward mobility and lifelong learning for all of Wisconsin's workforce. While W-2 is the stepping stone into the workforce for parents with barriers to employment, the program by itself may not raise someone out of poverty. But the service delivery system in which W-2 participants are served extends work supports and training opportunities to individuals at income levels well above the poverty level.

Time Limits

Wisconsin views the 60 month time limits as an important means of motivation for both the participants and the case managers. The philosophy is quite simple: Time limits stress mutual responsibility. Government provides support and services designed to promote employment while, in return, participants are expected to prepare for and enter employment. Therefore, from the moment participants begin participating in W-2, they are urged to increase their work skills through work activities and education and training and enter the workforce as soon as possible, thus saving months of eligibility for future use.

Although the time limit provisions under TANF prompted states to develop their own tougher state-specific time limit provisions, Wisconsin is different in that it allows up to 60-months of lifetime eligibility for W-2 benefits, but it limits the amount of time a person can participate in each W-2 subsidized employment positions to just 24-months. This is meant to encourage moving up the "W-2 ladder" towards self-sufficiency without abruptly ending benefits. Based on the Department's analysis of current TANF law and regulations, Wisconsin's estimated caseload that will go beyond 60 months can continue to be funded using TANF, and will stay well under the 20% for a significant period of time.

Implementation of Time Limit Policies and Procedures

As we developed our policies and procedures and implemented time limits, we found a number of consistencies across our W-2 caseload:

Although participants may be aware of time limits, they do not understand the specific details of the policy.

The topic of time limits was neither at the forefront of participant's minds nor a factor in influencing their actions.

Participant's time limited benefits as one-time deadline without considering whether they will have to return to cash assistance or not.

Wisconsin developed policies and procedures to address these consistencies. Frequent explanation of time limits and the details of the policy, beginning with application and continuing throughout a participant's time on W-2, assists them in understanding the detail of the policies. Our FEPs (Financial and Employment Planners) must continually assist participants in sorting through the day-to-day complexities they may experience and create short-term strategies for helping them - using the reinforcements the law and policy have given them. And, the FEPs must assist participants in exploring other resources the participant may be able to use and explain the need to save for the future in case of emergencies such as labor market downturn.

In addition, because we were not the first state to reach time limits, we looked to other states for their experiences. What we observed is that a number of states turned to a multitude of exemptions and extensions that allowed thousands of cases to continue receiving assistance despite the end of the time limit. As a result, the participants and the local agencies cannot take time limits seriously. This was an approach Wisconsin did not want to mirror. Based on other states' experiences, Wisconsin found that:

Blanket exemptions or extensions lessen the sense of urgency time limits place on recipients, case workers and service providers;

Under some circumstances, allowing cases additional time on cash assistance is a step backward into a trap that leaves these harder-to-serve cases dependent upon cash assistance,

just as we experienced under AFDC;

Allowing wholesale extensions to state-imposed time limits fails to prepare participants for the 60-month TANF time limit;

From the start, Wisconsin saw the need to prepare our administering agencies for the impacts of time-limits by ensuring that they were providing up-front, intensive case management. However, we recognized that even with encouragement and application of appropriate policies, not everyone would be successful in finding employment prior to reaching the time limits. For that reason, Wisconsin allows for extensions on a case-by-case basis to the time limits to give participants additional time in obtaining the skills, education and training and other supports they need. When determining if a W-2 participant is appropriate for an extension, considerations include prior cooperation with work requirements; inability to work due to incapacitation; caring for other incapacitated family members; significant limitations to employment, such as low achievement ability; and inability to find work due to local labor market conditions.

Thoughts on Time Limits for TANF Reauthorization

TANF reauthorization should retain time limits as they currently exist for the following reasons:

1.We need to continue to infuse a sense of URGENCY: by nature, people procrastinate.

2. Forging an attachment to the workforce takes time. The longer a work history you have -- the more likely you can hold onto the job you have or get another one when times are tough.

3.Our employees who run the program need to help people quickly - - because their clients need the income now. Staff need the push of a time limit as much as our participants do.

4.Employers need workers today not tomorrow, and the job that's there for our participant today may be filled with someone else tomorrow.

5.Our children need parents who are working role models TODAY. Researchers Wolfe and Haveman followed 1,700 families for 21 years -- discovered: incidences of a child dropping out of school dropped by one-half when the parent worked full-time.

And finally,

6.A lifetime limit encourages people to treat government income assistance like an insurance policy or a savings account. Used sparingly, and as a last resource.

Child-Only Caseload

Our child-only caseload is stable and consists of children of SSI recipients and Kinship Care cases. In these cases, the parent of the child is either unable to work due to a disability or not caring for the child due to child welfare concerns. Both of these programs are run by the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services - this is particularly critical for the Kinship Care cases. It ensures that child welfare interventions and family reunification efforts can be made as necessary.

Where do we go from here?

In Wisconsin, we are extending our efforts at serving the more severely barriered segment of the caseload. The W-2 program is built on the premise that everyone is capable of doing some form of work and there is a place for everyone in the program who is willing to participate to their ability. Given that premise, Wisconsin was careful to build in features that ensure those individuals with more barriers to employment will not fall through the cracks: the extension policies I mentioned earlier for both the 24-month and 60-month time limits; formal assessments are required for all W-2 participants placed in the lowest rung of the W-2 program; and flexibility in participation requirements which allow for services such as mental health counseling, AODA treatment, or domestic abuse services. We have a number of new initiatives underway that will serve to enhance our understanding of what strategies are most successful with this population. Among other things, we are contracting with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to design a screening tool for multiple barriers and we recently implemented a performance standard that bases W-2 contract dollars on appropriate assessment of participants.

Conclusion

TANF Reauthorization is an opportunity for Congress to further strengthen families through work. But in doing so, Congress must keep in mind the very real differences, not just across states, but from one community to the next:

Rural communities vary drastically in their makeup of human service resources, transportation services, and safe, affordable housing when compared with Urban areas of a state; and Pockets of high unemployment are a reality in most states. These communities need special consideration for programs that attract new businesses and retraining of workers - an effort that requires a long-term planning approach;

PRWORA's success thus far is based on the flexibility provided by Congress, not in spite of it. And state and local innovation are driving factors. It is difficult for researchers to study and quantify our successes because the multiplicity of strategies across states has created a program that looks like a patchwork quilt. But we owe it to our children to stay on this path where meeting individuals needs are paramount to meeting the needs of the system that serves them.

Thank you.



LOAD-DATE: March 13, 2002