When the GOP gained control of the House and Senate in 1994, overhauling the nation’s welfare system was at the heart of its reform agenda. Led by Congressional Republicans, President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill into law in 1996 after vetoing similar legislation twice. The key component of the ’96 law - which replaced the Depression-era cash entitlement system - is the requirement that welfare recipients work for benefits.

     The effects of the law have been nothing short of dramatic: welfare caseloads have dropped 57 percent from their all-time high of 5.1 million families in March 1994 to 2.1 million in May 2001, according to the Health & Human Services Department. Moreover, the most recent Census figures show that employment by mothers most likely to go on welfare rose by 40 percent between 1995 and 2000. And since 1996, nearly three million children have been lifted from poverty, reducing the black child poverty rate to its lowest point ever. In short, welfare reform is working; it has delivered unprecedented results and brought a whole new culture to the federal aid program.

     The Working Toward Independence Act - introduced on April 9 by 21st Century Competitiveness Subcommittee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) - begins the next phase of welfare reform. Based on President Bush’s welfare reform proposal, the bill aims to strengthen families and help more welfare recipients work toward independence and self-reliance. It also incorporates key elements of President Bush’s recently-unveiled Good Start, Grow Smart plan to improve early childhood education.

     One of the myths that welfare reform opponents like to employ is that the reductions in welfare caseloads and child poverty during the latter half of the 1990s were the result of a healthy economy, not the welfare reform law. But history shows that this argument doesn’t hold water: during other long economic booms in the 1960s and ‘80s, welfare caseloads actually rose. The fact is that the ’96 reform law’s work requirements made the crucial difference in maximizing opportunities for welfare recipients to participate in the workforce.

• A report recently released by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), an independent research organization, found that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the block grant program that began under the welfare reform law, accounts for more than half of the decline in welfare participation and 60 percent of the rise in single mother employment since 1996.
  
• If economic growth was the chief cause of the drops in welfare caseloads and child poverty, then these successes should be connected to economic conditions in states. But they’re not: a 1999 Heritage Foundation report showed that the “relative vigor of state economies, as measured by employment rates, changes in unemployment, or state job growth, had no statistically significant effect on caseload decline.”
  
• Given the dire predictions reform opponents made in 1996 - that work requirements would push 2.6 million people into poverty during an economic boom - it’s hypocritical for them to say now that it was the same good economy that accounts for the welfare law’s positive results.

     The success of the 1996 welfare reform law is beyond dispute. The challenge for Congress this year is to build on that success - by putting even more Americans on the path to self-reliance. That is the chief aim of the Working Toward Independence Act.

     While the ’96 reforms significantly reduced welfare caseloads, we still have work to do: a majority of TANF recipients today are still not working for their benefits. According to the Health & Human Services Department’s Third Annual Report to Congress (August 2000), 58 percent of TANF adult recipients are not participating in work activities as defined by federal law, which includes work and various other job training and education activities.

Work Requirements: There have been suggestions that Congress should weaken TANF work requirements, an approach that would turn back the clock on the impressive gains made since 1996. The Working Toward Independence Act ensures that work requirements remain at the centerpiece of federal welfare law. Moreover, it strengthens current law by insisting that welfare recipients engage in work activities for at least 24 hours a week and in other constructive activities - such as education or job training - for the remaining 16 hours.

• Combining real work with programs that help recipients advance is the best way to increase their income and improve the well-being of their children.
  
• Approximately three million families remain on the welfare rolls today. Watering down current work requirements will only serve to prolong their dependence on welfare and, consequently, harm the most vulnerable members of our society.
  
• “From our experience, the most compassionate way to break the cycle of poverty, dependency and hopelessness is through work,” said Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, echoing the experiences of many other governors and state leaders who have been on the front line of the 1996 law’s implementation.

State Flexibility: In addition to strengthening TANF work requirements, the Working Toward Independence Act gives states dramatic new flexibility to empower them to develop new and innovative solutions to help welfare recipients achieve independence.

• The measure offers “superwaivers” for states to integrate Education, Labor, & Health and Human Services Department welfare funding.
  
• This new flexibility will help states create broad, comprehensive assistance programs for needy families - as long as they achieve the purpose of the underlying program and continue to target those in need.

Child Care: Affordable, reliable child care is critical to allow mothers to obtain and retain employment. Largely because of welfare reform, unprecedented numbers of women with children participate in the workforce. Not surprisingly, there are 700,000 fewer single mothers living in poverty today than in the mid-1990s, according to the Census Bureau. The Working Toward Independence Act reauthorizes the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and helps ensure that low-income families receive child care benefits that support their transition into the workforce.

• The Working Towards Independence Act reauthorizes the CCBDG through 2007, maintaining historic levels of funding for the block grant program. The bill authorizes $2.1 billion in discretionary funding for the CCDBG, as requested by President Bush.
  
• Consistent with President Bush’s Good Start, Grow Smart childhood education initiative, the measure encourages states to address the cognitive needs of young children so they’re developmentally prepared to start school.
  
• Field experts and state leaders involved in child care indicate that the flexibility of the CCDBG program is essential for its continued success. The bill therefore encourages states to create innovative partnerships with public and private entities to increase the supply and quality of child care services.
  
• The measure also gives states maximum flexibility to develop child care programs and policies that meet the needs of children and parents and target those who need help the most.
  
• The bill also makes necessary improvements to the block grant program - it emphasizes the importance of the quality of child care and asks states to make a concerted effort to meet the needs of parents who have children with special needs, work non-traditional hours, or require infant and toddler care.

     The 1996 welfare reform law is one of the most successful legislative initiatives in recent memory. Its unprecedented success has convinced skeptics who initially opposed the legislation. For example, Wendell Primus, a deputy assistant secretary in the Clinton-era Heath & Human Services Department, resigned when the welfare reform bill was signed into law. Today, Primus says: “In many ways, welfare reform is working better than I thought it would. . . . Whatever we have been doing over the last five years, we ought to keep going (Harden, “Two Parent Families Rise after Change in Welfare Laws, New York Times, August 12, 2001).”

     This year, Congress must build on the success of the 1996 law. We must put more Americans in productive jobs, and put even more individuals on the path to self-reliance and independence. By strengthening work requirements and ensuring that welfare families have access to quality child care, the Working Toward Independence Act will accomplish these goals.