H.R. 4737
The Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act

Summary

H.R. 4737 reauthorizes and improves the program of block grants to States for temporary assistance for needy families (TANF), improves access to quality child care, and for other purposes.

Helping Welfare Recipients Achieve Independence Through Work

Increasing Minimum Work Requirements.

• Under current law, at least 50 percent of TANF families are required to participate in work and other activities designed to help them achieve self-sufficiency, but in many States far fewer actually work. H.R. 4737 increases the work requirement by 5 percent per year, so that States are required to have 70 percent of welfare families working and participating in other job-preparation activities 40 hours per week by FY 2007. 40 hours per week is defined as:
  • 24 hours of direct work, defined as: unsubsidized jobs, subsidized private jobs, subsidized public jobs, on-the-job training, supervised work experience, and supervised community service; and
  • 16 hours of State defined activity connected to the purposes of the TANF program (e.g. A State can define caring for a disabled child as work for these hours).
• The measure allows States to continue to get "credit" toward work participation rates for future caseload declines.
• The measure eliminates the separate work requirement standard for two-parent families.
• Additionally, 17 "superachiever" States with caseload declines well above the national average since 1995 will receive an additional credit toward the rising State work rate.

Requiring Welfare Recipients to Put in a Full Work Week and Providing Additional Opportunities for Education and Training

• The measure builds on the successful work requirements of the 1996 welfare reform law by requiring welfare recipients to work 40 hours per week - either at a job or in programs or activities designed to help them achieve independence.
• H.R. 4737 also builds into the calculation a four-week cushion for sick leave and holidays, simulating a typical American work schedule.
• The measure makes special accommodations for parents with infants and individuals who need substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation or special work-related training. As much as two days per week can be spent in these activities and be counted as "work".
• 3 months of State-designed activities, including substance abuse or mental health treatment to improve welfare recipients' ability to go to work, and up to four months of education or training programs leading to work during a 24-month period may be counted by the State as direct work.

Protecting Children & Strengthening Families

Protecting Children by Increasing Child Care Funding and Increasing States' Flexibility in Providing Child Care for Low-Income Working Families

• H.R. 4737 continues historically high levels of support for child care (currently $4.8 billion per year) through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), while adding $2 billion in additional funds for child care in the coming 5 years.
  • Half of this funding will be mandatory and half discretionary, and the legislation includes taxpayer protection provisions that recently passed the House that fully offset the additional mandatory costs.
• The measure also increases the amount of TANF funds States can transfer to CCDBG from 30 percent to 50 percent per year.

Improving Child Care Quality

• Consistent with President Bush's new early childhood education initiative, Good Start, Grow Smart, H.R. 4737 encourages States to address the cognitive needs of young children so that they are developmentally prepared to enter school.
• The measure also encourages States to utilize resources in their State to collect and disseminate information to parents, consumers, and child care providers.
• Moreover, the bill emphasizes the importance of quality child care and education by requesting States to address the quality of care available to children and parents.
• The bill requires States to devote at least six percent of funds from the CCDBG to improve child care quality, and establishes permissible uses for those funds.
• The measure also requests that States work to meet the needs of parents eligible for assistance who have children with special needs, work non-traditional hours, or require infant and toddler care.

Strengthening Child Support Enforcement and Encouraging States to Give Child Support Payments to Mothers And Children

• H.R. 4737 provides financial incentives for the States to give more money to mothers and children, especially mothers who have left welfare. Under current law, government keeps a substantial portion of the money collected to pay past-due child support in cases of families that have received welfare.

Encouraging Healthy Marriages and Two-Parent Married Families

• H.R. 4737 directs up to $300 million annually for programs that encourage healthy, stable marriages. These programs include pre-marital education and counseling, as well as research and technical assistance into promising approaches that work.
• Additionally, the measure removes disincentives in current law so States will spend more of their own funds on programs designed to promote marriage.
• H.R. 4737 authorizes a $20 million grant fund, as proposed by the President and included in the House Budget Resolution, to support community efforts to promote responsible fatherhood.

Encouraging Innovation by States

Establishing Broad New "State Flex" Authority to Encourage Program Innovation

• H.R. 4737 offers new authority to enable States to conduct "State Flex" demonstration projects to improve program effectiveness or coordinate a range of programs in order to improve service delivery. Eligible programs include TANF, Food Stamps, Public Housing, Workforce Investment Act, and Child Care, among others. This new flexibility will help States design fully coordinated programs that could revolutionize service delivery.
• An additional provision involves matters that may not be waived under the State Flex authority in Title VII, Section 701 of both H.R. 4700 and the revised bill, H.R. 4737. The legislation now specifies that State Flex authority may not result in the waiver of either funding restrictions in appropriations and other Acts or the transfer of funds from one program to another.

Background

Enacted in August, 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides fixed block grants ($16.5 billion annually through FY 2002) for state-designed programs of time-limited and work-conditioned aid to families with children. The 1996 law also created a mandatory block grant to states for child care to low-income families, funded through FY 2002.

TANF Basics:

• No Entitlement. The law stipulates that no individual or family is entitled to TANF aid;
• Purpose. Increase state flexibility in operating a program to help needy families care for children at home; end dependence of needy parents upon government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and encourage formation and maintenance of two-parent families;
• Time Limit. Federal funds may not be used to give basic ongoing aid to a family with a member who has received 60 months of aid as an adult (hardship exemptions are allowed for up to 20 percent of the caseload). Because states began TANF at different times between August 1996 and July 1997, the time deadline varies by state;
• Work Rules. States must engage a certain percentage of adult recipients in specified work activities and must reduce or end benefits of persons who refuse to work. The law reinforces these requirements with fiscal penalties on states;
• Allocation of Funds. Each state grant equals the peak annual sum that the state received in 1992-1995 for three programs ended by TANF-Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program, and Emergency Assistance (EA) for needy families; and
• Required State Funding-Maintenance-of-effort (MOE). States must spend on needy families at least $10.4 billion annually (each state must spend 75 percent of the sum it spent on programs replaced by TANF in FY 1994, when national family welfare rolls peaked).