Statement by Marian Wright Edelman on introduction
by the House leadership of proposed legislation regarding the reauthorization of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
the federal welfare law.

The legislation introduced by Chairman Herger (R-CA) in the House of Representatives this week misses the opportunity to help working parents move into real, permanent jobs and keep them. It talks about improving child well-being. But it acts to freeze funds for essential child care and other work supports for five more years. Families need supports to prevent them from being the last hired and first fired. They need low cost, good quality child care, training to get a better job, and transportation help so that a needed car repair does not result in lost employment. Chairman Herger's bill provides no new funds to provide these supports—not one more cent over five years. Instead, there are rigid requirements that will force states to devote scarce resources to creating make-work assignments for hundreds of thousands of parents. Families need real jobs, with above-poverty pay. Far from creating an easier path to permanent employment, this proposal sets up roadblocks.

Children deserve the chance to grow up out of poverty. In the 1990s, poor parents went to work in large numbers to give their children that chance. The strong economy, more child care, as well as other government help and requirements all played a role in increasing the number of working families.

As Congress moves to renew the federal welfare-to-work legislation, it must recognize that the gains made by low-income families are precarious and need to be protected. From 1995 to 2000, the number of children in a family where at least one parent was unemployed dropped from 4.3 million to nearly 2.9 million. That welcome five years of progress was nearly undone by just one year of recession, when the number of children with an unemployed parent surged back to 4.0 million, a more than 40 percent increase.

There is a better way. The House should add $20 billion in new child care funding so parents can work and advance through training, confident that their children are safe and learning. Congress should increase welfare-to-work funding and end federal restrictions on supplements to low wages and on education. It should provide services families need to overcome crises of disability or domestic violence, to enable parents to work. Representatives Cardin, Levin, and Mink have proposed bills that represent genuine progress for working families. These supports cost money, but investing in our children should be an unarguable choice in the richest nation on earth if we are to truly leave no child behind©.

The Children's Defense Fund is scheduled to testify today before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Ways and Means about the proposed welfare reauthorization legislation. A report by the Children's Defense Fund, The Recession Hits Children: 2001 Undoes Much of the '90s Employment Gains for Parents is available online. Marian Wright Edelman is President and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.

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The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind® and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.  CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby, or speak for themselves.  We pay particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities.  CDF educates the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventive investment before they get sick, into trouble, drop out of school, or suffer family breakdown.  CDF began in 1973 and is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations.  We have never taken government funds.