SOUDER VOTES FOR WELFARE REFORM
WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) today voted for House Resolution 4700, the Personal Responsibility, Work and Family Promotion Act. The bill passed the House by a vote of 229-197.
“We achieved great things with the 1996 Welfare Reform bill, but there is still more work to do,” Souder said. “We have cut welfare caseloads by 9 million and lifted 3 million children out of poverty. But many recipients are still not working nor participating in job training, and too many families are still dependent on the system. This bill continues the work we began six years ago by increasing work requirements, promoting marriage and family, and giving states more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars to help those who need help the most.”
The new bill
- Increases minimum work requirements from 50% of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds to 70% (the rise would be by 5% a year over several years). It requires a 40-hour work week with built-in flexibility for job training and sick and vacation leave.
- Increases funding for child care by $2 billion over five years while offering states increased flexibility in child care block grants and encouraging them to address cognitive and educational needs of young children. The bill also strengthens child support enforcement and gives states financial incentives to give more of the money collected in past-due child support payments to mothers and children.
- Includes programs to encourage healthy, stable marriages and families, including pre-marital education and counseling.
- Offers new authority for states to conduct “State Flex” demonstration projects to experiment with ways to improve program effectiveness or service delivery. Programs eligible for State Flex include TANF, Food Stamps, Public Housing, Workforce Investment Act, and Child Care. The bill includes safeguards to make sure that demonstration waivers do not undermine program integrity, including provisions that prevent states from applying for waivers for locally-controlled programs if the local program administrators do not concur.
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