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"Working Toward Independence Act of 2002" Friday, May 10, 2002
Introduction
Democrats and Republicans alike have agreed that the welfare system of the prior half-century was a failure and needed to be replaced with a program that stressed moving able-bodied adult welfare recipients towards employment and self-support.
Six years later, results of that experiment are in, and they are mixed. The evidence gathered in study after study documents that while we have moved many off welfare, the current program enacted in 1996 has not achieved the goals of promoting long-term economic independence, jobs that lift and keep families out of poverty, or improved living standards for million of children.
Achieving the goal of permanent economic independence for former welfare recipients free from continued support on government assistance should be the goal of the legislation. We should finish the job begun in 1996. Instead, the Committee bill imposes massive new mandates on states and requirements on impoverished mothers without also the assistance necessary to make those reforms work. We need to make welfare reform work, not punish the governors and the recipients alike because it hasn’t moved fast enough yet.
A recently op-ed by Minnesota’s Governor, Jesse Ventura articulated the concerns of many of the Nation’s governors have with the inflexible, “one size fits all” federal mandates imposed by this legislation.
“We know what we are doing in Minnesota works. We have evidence. Why should we be forced by the federal government to put our system at risk…The [Republican] proposal would have Minnesota set all this aside and focus instead on make-work activities. In Minnesota we believe that success in welfare reform is about helping families progress to a self-sufficiency that will last. While it may be politically appealing to demand that all welfare recipients have shovels in their hands, it makes sense to me that the states, and not the feds are in the best position to make those decisions.…” 1
While caseloads since 1996 have fallen over 50% nationally, the poverty rate has decreased only 13% over the same period. This means that even during a time of historical economic expansion, many of those who have left welfare remain dependent on food stamps, WIC and other public assistance, and are raising children in deep poverty with all of its harmful impacts, without the education, training or child care that is necessary to move to real independence. The incomes of the poorest one-fifth of single-parent families have continued to fall, with 700,000 families falling into deeper poverty since 1995. 2
Two major studies have recently looked at the record since 1996. In one review of 900 former welfare families, researchers concluded that most still live below the poverty line and have been forced to cut back on food to save money. Another major review of seven Midwestern 3 states also concluded that many of the former recipients remained in poverty while Indiana and Wisconsin’s rolls grew by 13% last year. In Michigan, 71% of those who combined welfare and work, and nearly 50% of those former recipients who worked full time, remained poor with many unable to buy food, pay utilities or rent. Those findings demonstrate clearly that more must be done to move people off welfare and into employment.
Making welfare work is the approach of the Committee’s Democratic members-- and that was the goal of amendments offered by Democrats in the Committee. Unfortunately, the Majority repeatedly and unanimously rejected amendments to assure recipients have the education and training, the job skills and the child care they need – but do not have today – to leave welfare, to find good jobs and keep them. We will request a rule that permits full consideration of these amendments when the House takes up H.R. 4092.
Few welfare leavers have exited poverty and approximately one-quarter return to welfare within a year of exiting.4 This reauthorization must take the next step in welfare reform by focusing on employment, job retention, and increasing incomes. Research on the effects of welfare reform on children finds that increasing single parents' employment through welfare mandates has a negligible effect on elementary school-aged children, but welfare policies aimed both at increasing employment and supplementing income lead to positive cognitive and behavioral changes in elementary school-aged children.5 Welfare-to-work programs need to be able to assess a recipient’s individual needs and assist recipients in doing what is needed to become employed and remain employed. The Democratic approach would give states the ability to help recipients address employment barriers, assess and permit training or education that can lead to better paying and more sustained employment, and it would provide the child care needed to keep families employed and prepare children for academic success.
By contrast, the Committee bill takes a very different approach. Instead of building on what we have learned over the past decade of welfare reform, or listening to Governors, welfare administrators and welfare recipients, the Majority is forcing a single, restrictive welfare model on the entire country with no evidence that this is a more effective approach. The Committee bill adds massive new work requirements without allowing states reasonable flexibility to provide adequate training, as well as other mandates and punishing requirements for state administrators and for welfare recipients alike – with little financial assistance for either. This model will undermine current efforts to move welfare families off welfare and into sustainable jobs that can lift families out of poverty.
Access to Quality Child Care—The Key to Helping Move Families from Welfare To Work
Access to quality child care is an essential part of helping low-income workers get off welfare and improving the chances that children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. Unfortunately, Republican members of the committee unanimously defeated the Democratic child care amendment offered by Representative George Miller, that sought to increase investment in child care by $8 billion and the quality set-aside from 4% to 12%, allowing state to make substantial changes in the supply and delivery of high quality child care. The amendment would have also created an incentive grant program for states to increase their provider payment rates to target high quality care and care in short supply, such as infant and toddler care, care during nontraditional hours, and care for children with disabilities and other special needs.
The Center for Law and Social Policy estimates the new work requirement will cost the states almost $8 billion dollars in new child care costs."6 CBO estimates the additional child care cost of meeting the new work requirements could be as much as $5 billion, and that assumes no increase in case loads. By either estimate, the funding for child care in the Committee bill is woefully inadequate and constitutes a substantial new unfunded mandate on already cash strapped states.7 It fails to expand the ability of low income working families to secure quality child care and does not even keep up with inflation. The right child care assistance program can make the difference in a child reaching school age ready to succeed, and it can make the difference in a family remaining employed and off welfare.
Research on early brain development finds that children’s experiences in their first 5 years of life have major, lasting effects on learning and academic success. Failure to assure access to quality pre-school programs is a missed opportunity to help develop a child’s school-readiness. Kindergarten teachers report many of their students begin kindergarten cognitively and behaviorally unprepared to learn.
In addition to having lasting impact on a child’s growth, child care is also a critically important work support. Reliable, accessible and affordable child care is needed for families to continue their employment and get and remain off welfare. The average cost of center-based care for preschool age children costs between $4,000 and $10,000 annually, which is more than the average public college tuition in 48 states. Poor families who are unable to secure child care assistance often pay up to one-third of their income for child care,8 creating a severe financial burden for families struggling to make ends meet and marginalizing the value of going to work or remaining employed. Indeed, families often cite problems with child care as a major reason for leaving employment.9 Lack of child care is consistently identified as a reason for non-employment among welfare leavers, and child care arrangements affect not only whether an individual is employed, but also the frequency of absences, the shift the individual works, and the jobs the individual accepts.10 Helping families afford reliable and healthy child care is important to moving and keeping people off welfare and the economic strength of this country.
Although CCDBG now serves over 2 million children, the child care needs of low-income working families are vastly under-funded, and the Majority does little to address this critical shortcoming. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates that only 1 in 7 federally eligible children are receiving child care assistance through CCDBG. The Majority has stated that this is largely due to an unnecessarily high federal eligibility, but the data does not support this claim. A study of working welfare leavers found less than 50% received child care assistance.11 The state of California, which sets its eligibility cap at 73% of state median income, is reported to have 200,000 families on the child care assistance waiting list.12 According to a 2000 CalWorks report, only 19% of California children on welfare receive some form of child care assistance.13 In Florida (which sets its eligibility at 50% of state median income), families working their way off TANF cash assistance have only 2 years of transitional child care and after that, they must join the waiting list of 48,000 families. Nearly 20 states have waiting lists for child care assistance and many more have frozen intake because they cannot serve more families.
During a Committee hearing on April 9, 2002, Secretary Thompson testified that additional funding is not needed because the welfare caseload reduction over the past 6 years leaves many fewer families to serve, but this reasoning is flawed on two levels. First, in the 1996 reauthorization of CCDBG and TANF, four child care programs were streamlined into one CCDBG program designed to provide assistance to low-income working families, regardless of welfare status. It is clear from the statute that CCDBG was not meant to only be a child care assistance program for welfare families. The law rightly recognized that child care assistance is a critical work support for all low-income families so a caseload reduction does not translate into a reduced need for child care assistance. Second, poverty figures, population demographics and welfare laws all clearly demonstrate a high and unmet need for child care assistance for low-income families. Most welfare leavers have remained poor or near poor since leaving welfare so their need for child care assistance did not diminish. Families on the welfare caseload are in greater need of child care than ever. Prior to welfare reform, approximately 8% of AFDC recipients were working, but since 1996, the share of TANF families working or participating in work-related activities while receiving TANF has greatly increased. 14 Furthermore, whereas in 1996, 54.5% of single women with children under 3 were working this had grown to 67.3% by 2000.15 In addition, 20 states have chosen not to exempt from work requirements mothers on welfare with children under 6 months of age, necessitating greater need for infant care, which is more costly than preschooler care. For these reasons, there remains a high need for child care assistance despite caseload reduction.
In addition to increasing the number of families served by CCDBG, policy reforms are imperative so that families may access high quality care. CCDBG only requires states set-aside 4% of the funds for activities related to improving the quality in child care in the state. By comparison 35% of all new Head Start funds are reserved for improving quality. This amount is clearly insufficient since evaluations indicate the quality of most care is mediocre to poor and children from low-income families often arrive at kindergarten already academically behind their more affluent peers.
Nor does the Republican legislation make any meaningful policy changes to help parents access high quality child care. Secretary Thompson testified that states spend approximately between 6-7% on quality related activities on average, which is more than the level set on the Committee bill.
Finally, the Majority eliminates the federal eligibility income cap of 85% of state median income, removing the direction of targeting low-income working families rather than just families on welfare. The primary reason for this change is so the high demand for child care cannot be enumerated. It is essential that states continue to have the flexibility to set their maximum income eligibility limits for child care assistance up to 85% of SMI so they can reach the many working families still not earning enough to afford good quality child care.
Education and Training: Tools for Permanent Self Sufficiency
We strongly support state efforts to provide needed education and training to welfare recipients because we believe this is often a fundamental component to moving families into jobs that keep people off welfare and out of poverty. To the extent that policy makers and taxpayers have an interest in encouraging families to be able to adequately support themselves, education and training is critical. Of adults on welfare, 2 million do not have a high school diploma or GED and 12% are foreign born. We cannot expect the majority of these families to able to find and hold jobs without basic language and training skills. And we cannot expect them to adequately support their families without giving them the opportunity to receive additional training and education.
The Committee bill takes the states and families backwards on education and training. Under current TANF law, states may place families in training of unlimited duration and in vocational education for up to one year. The Committee bill would permit states to count on-the-job training as a work activity and permit education and training for up to 16 hours a week. However, the latter is of limited usefulness as less than 10% of training activities are on-the-job training according to the Department of Labor. Further, many training programs exceed 16 hours a week; requiring that they be taken on a less than part-time basis would force recipients to take twice as long to be job-ready. Employers have repeatedly told Congress that they need a skilled force and as soon as possible.
The Committee bill would reduce state flexibility to provide education and training to their residents. The bill would require many states, including California, Delaware, Kentucky, New York, New Jersey and Ohio, to amend their state laws to reduce the level of education and training permitted. The National Governors Association policy on welfare reform explicitly states that:
The Democratic amendment offered by Representative Tierney of Massachusetts would have retained and improved current law to permit states to provide expanded educational and training opportunities to count for the full work requirement for 24 months. Education and training could continue part-time thereafter when combined with work. The Democratic proposal made clear that educational opportunities include vocational training, post secondary education, work study, internships, job training, English as a Second Language (ESL), attainment of a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) and basic adult literacy study.
It is unclear to us why the Administration and Majority not only do not support education and training for needy families, but also want to restrict the ability of the states to use these supports to advance the long-term prospects of their residents. The data could not be clearer - Education Pays! According to 2000 data from the Census Bureau, 39% of women without a high school education live in poverty, while only 17.6% of women with a high school diploma live in poverty. Only 8.5% of women with some college education live below the poverty line, and only 4.3% of women with a 4-year college degree live in poverty. According to Census data, the 1999 median income of women who have an associate’s degree is $23,760 and $30,730 for women who have a bachelor’s degree. This represents two to three times as much as a woman earns working full-time at a minimum wage job. (Using the National Longitudinal Survey, researchers have estimated that hourly earnings increase by between 19 to 23 percent for women earning an Associate’s degree. The number of studies documenting the importance of education is overwhelming:
According to a December 2000 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education, TANF leavers who were most successful in sustaining employment were also twice as likely to have a technical or two-year degree. The Department’s NEWWS study of state welfare reform programs found that the most successful programs used a mix of education and training and work, not just encouraging recipients to take the first job located. The three sites in the research study that most increased hourly pay for TANF recipients who lacked a high school diploma or GED – Columbus, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Portland, Oregon – also boosted participation in postsecondary education or occupational training.
The business community needs well-trained people to fill vacant positions now. A recent report issued jointly from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay concluded that at no other time in history has the business community needed skilled workers to fill vacant position. They recommend that in reforming welfare policy, education and job training must count as work for recipients so they can get the skills needed to fill these jobs. Part time skills training is not good enough, as they need the workers now, not in four or five years. The Educational Testing Service reports that nearly 70% of the jobs created through 2006 will require workers with education skills that are higher than the levels of most current welfare recipients. Denying individuals the opportunity to gain needed job skills, as the Committee bill would do, forces them into low wage jobs with no potential for advancement.
The American people understand and support the need for meaningful education and training for welfare recipients. According to a 2002 poll conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates:
The Majority has not looked at the types of jobs and job skills that are needed throughout the states or the length of training required for these skills. For example, at Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin, Associate degree programs requirements range from 64 to 72 semester hours for degree completion. An associate degree at Fox in automotive technology takes 2 and one-half years to complete and a dental hygienist takes three years to complete on a part-time basis.
North central Technical College (NTC) provides an American Dental Association accredited full-time, two-year dental hygiene program. In California, Bakersfield College provides an Associate Degree in Radiologic Technology over 4 semesters + 2 summers and a Certificate of Achievement in Dietetic Services over 18-24 months. In Ohio, Edison College provides Associate Degrees that require 60-68 semester hours for completion in Paralegal Studies, Logistics, Computer Electronics, and Human Services. Washington State Community College requires programs that require 18 –24 months for completion including Computer Support Technician, Respiratory Therapy, Medical Laboratory Technician and
Electronics.
State Employment Credit: Rewarding States for Putting People to Work
Welfare success should be gauged by employment rates: moving people off and staying off welfare, and mobility out of poverty. In order to provide incentives for states to help welfare recipients to find stable, long-term jobs, an employment credit amendment was offered by Representative Ron Kind. This amendment would eliminate the current caseload reduction credit which rewards states for just removing people from the welfare caseload and phases in an employment credit that rewards states for helping families get jobs by providing a bonus to states for families who obtain higher paying jobs. An employment credit is an important method for creating an incentive for states to move people from welfare to work.
Under the Republican plan, states are rewarded for caseload declines regardless of the reason for exit from the caseload. This approach does nothing to help welfare-to-work programs focus on helping recipients get meaningful jobs that lead to long-term self-sufficiency. Currently, about 30-40% of welfare leavers are not employed when they exit welfare and many remain on some type of public assistance because of their unemployment and lack of cash assistance.16 National data suggest that over 20% of those who left welfare between 1997 and 1999 returned within that same time period.17 This too is an undesirable outcome that would be addressed by the Democratic amendment but not the Republicans. The Minority believes the Majority is inconsistent at best when they tout the goal of self-sufficiency but reject state incentives that would accomplish this goal.
Full Family Sanctions: Repealing State Flexibility
As a method of enforcing recipients’ compliance with welfare requirements, the 1996 welfare reform law required states to impose partial or full family sanctions to recipients failing to comply with work or other welfare requirements. Twenty-four states chose to use only partial sanctions and of the 26 states using full-family sanctions, only half imposed full-family sanctions after the first noncompliance. Other states impose partial sanctions that can escalate with repeated or continual noncompliance.
The Committee bill eliminates state flexibility on sanction policy by requiring all states to impose full-family sanctions after two months of noncompliance. The Minority believes this approach is unnecessarily harsh given that there is no evidence that stricter sanction policies lead to better participation or compliance and that research demonstrates that sanctioned families are some of the most vulnerable families. 18
Studies find that sanctioned families are more likely to have one or more barriers to employment, such as mental or physical health problems, inadequate education or domestic violence crises. For instance, one study found recipients with more health problems were more likely to be sanctioned than healthier recipients.19 The health barriers most strongly related to being sanctioned were physical abuse, risk for depression, and having a child with a health problem. A study of recipients in Minnesota found sanctioned families were four times more likely to have a substance abuse problem, three times more likely to have a family health problem, twice as likely to have a mental health problem, and twice as likely to have recently been a victim of domestic violence.20 Yet another study in South Carolina found sanctioned families were substantially more likely to have lower education levels than families who left welfare due to earnings. 21
The Committee bill’s family-sanction provisions are punitive and harmful to children and families, and will be ineffective. The Majority’s decision to eliminate state flexibility and impose full family sanctions for noncompliance punishes children for their parents’ behavior and is inconsistent with the Majority’s decision to make “child well-being” an inherent goal of welfare reform. Full-family sanctions disengage the state offering needed services to families who are in the most need of help to address barriers to employment and to become more self-sufficient. The Majority’s bill provides no room for states to individually assess and assist a family’s problems or needs. Instead of requiring states impose these sanctions, the Minority believes states should be making greater efforts to assess recipient barriers to employment so that more families can receive the help they need and child and family well-being can improve.
Superwaiver: Undermining Accountability
We also have significant concerns over Title III of the bill - the so called “Superwaiver” provision. The Superwaiver provision would provide unprecedented block grant and waiver authority –with no assistance or direction to state and local officials on how it would make programs more effective or accountable. The waiver provisions would create havoc with well-regarded existing education and labor programs that are in disfavor with the Majority. Despite this provision's meager protections for maintenance of effort and local funding distribution requirements, funding under the Adult Education, Wagner-Peyser, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and Section 505 of the Family Support Act of 1988 programs would be vulnerable to this block grant procedure.
Under this authority, the Governor of a State can apply to the relevant Secretary to operate a five-year demonstration program in which two or more of these programs would be consolidated. As part of this block grant, the Secretary can also approve waivers of nearly any program requirement, including those related to accountability, program quality and serving disadvantaged populations. State and local stakeholders who have hands-on knowledge of the utility and importance of these programs can be overruled by the waiver process.
These so-called “demonstration” programs may be “demonstration” in name only. All state funding under the Adult Education, Wagner-Peyser, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and Section 505 of the Family Support Act of 1988 may be subsumed into the demonstration program for a five-year period. The Superwaiver provision also provides no statutory requirement for a Secretary to consider the effectiveness of the demonstration project and its waivers before renewing a demonstration project at the end of its five-year period. If the demonstration project is a failure, the Secretary is not required to use this information in determining whether to extend the project. Very simply, there is no accountability for performance of a State or sub-State entity which participates in this Superwaiver authority.
This risky Superwaiver provision would also have specific program impacts:
Elimination of focused funding for One Stop Centers - Wagner-Peyser provides funding for the One Stop Centers that are an intricate part of our job training programs at the Federal Level. One stop centers provide crucial services to dislocated workers and new entrants to the job market as well as TANF recipients. In addition, these centers serve vital functions both in administering unemployment law and in the collection and reporting of employment market information. By allowing all requirements of the Wagner-Peyser Act to be waived, our Republican colleagues are pitting TANF recipients against dislocated workers and new entrants to jobs and are jeopardizing the implementation of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and other vital assistance programs for unemployed and underemployed workers.
Eliminates Accountability for Adult Ed - Adult Ed presently requires the States and the Secretary to agree on acceptable levels of performance for Adult Ed programs in the State - this entire accountability system could be terminated through a waiver.
Elimination of Important Quality Focus on Child Care - CCDBG requires States to invest in the quality of child care, in addition to providing resources for children to receive child care - Governors could waive the requirement to focus on quality.
Protections for Welfare-To-Work Participants/Non-Displacement of Workers
We want to ensure that current worker protections and discrimination provisions continue to apply to all individuals who participate in work activities. We support legislative language that would confirm Congress’ intent to provide such protections. All work participants should have a safe workplace, fair wages, and protections against discrimination.
The Committee bill will force hundreds of thousands of recipients into forced subsidized work assignments in order for the states to met unrealistic mandate work requirements. The problem will be further compounded by the failure of the bill to provide adequate educational opportunities necessary to find and maintain private sector work.
As states and local governments scramble to meet these new unfunded mandates, they will face enormous financial pressure that makes displacement of existing state and municipal workers by welfare to work participants a real and serious threat.
Current law protections are inadequate to ensure welfare recipients do not displace other workers. During the Committee’s markup, the Majority defeated an amendment offered by Miller to strengthen non-displacement protections by ensuring that employee hours are not reduced, and advancement rights are not undermined as a result of subsidized welfare to work programs. The amendment would have ensured that welfare to work programs do not negate agreements or rights related to recall or promotion, and the amendment would have provided a fair and expeditious resolution to displacement allegations, and provide for a remedy if displacement does occur.
George Miller, Dale Kildee, Patsy Mink, Robert Andrews, Major Owens, Donald Payne, Bobby Scott, Lynn Woolsey, Ruben Hinojosa, John Tierney, Ron Kind, Lynn Rivers, Loretta Sanchez, Harold Ford, Dennis Kucinich, Betty McCollum, Hilda Solis, Susan Davis
1. Washington Post, May 8, 2002 |
