109 HCON 438 IH: Expressing the sense of the Congress that
U.S. House of Representatives
2006-06-27
text/xml
EN
Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.
Whereas the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
program established by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–193) has succeeded in moving
families from welfare to work and reducing child poverty;
Whereas there has been a dramatic increase in the
employment of current and former welfare recipients;
Whereas the percentage of working recipients reached an
all-time high in fiscal year 1999 and held steady in fiscal years 2000 and
2001;
Whereas, in fiscal year 2004, 32 percent of adult
recipients were counted as meeting TANF work participation requirements,
significantly above pre-reform levels;
Whereas earnings for welfare recipients remaining on the
rolls also have increased significantly, as have earnings for female-headed
households;
Whereas single mothers, on average, earned $13.50 per hour
in 2004, almost three times the minimum wage;
Whereas the increases have been particularly large for the
bottom 2 income quintiles, that is, those women who are most likely to be
former or current welfare recipients;
Whereas welfare dependency has plummeted;
Whereas, as of September 2005, 1,887,855 families,
including 4,443,170 individuals, were receiving TANF assistance, and
accordingly, the number of families in the welfare caseload and the number of
individuals receiving cash assistance declined 56 percent and 61 percent,
respectively, since the enactment of the TANF program;
Whereas, since the enactment of welfare reform, the number
of children in the United States has grown from 69,000,000 in 1995 to
73,000,000 in 2004, which is an increase of 4,000,000, yet 1,400,000 fewer
children were living in poverty in 2004 than in 1995—a 14 percent decline in
overall child poverty;
Whereas the poverty rates for African-American and
Hispanic children also have declined remarkably—20 percent and 28 percent,
respectively, since 1995;
Whereas, as a Nation, we have made substantial progress in
reducing teen pregnancies and births, slowing increases in non-marital
childbearing, and improving child support collections and paternity
establishment;
Whereas the birth rate to teenagers declined 30 percent
from its high in 1991 to 2004. The 2004 teenage birth rate of 41.2 per 1,000
women aged 15 through 19 is the lowest recorded birth rate for teenagers since
1940;
Whereas, during the period from 1991 through 2001, teenage
birth rates fell in all States and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam,
and the Virgin Islands;
Whereas such declines also have spanned age, racial, and
ethnic groups;
Whereas there has been success in lowering the birth rate
for both younger and older teens;
Whereas the birth rate for those aged 15 through 17
declined 43 percent since 1991, the rate for those aged 18 and 19 declined 26
percent, and the rate for African American teens—until recently the
highest—declined the most—falling 47 percent from 1991 through 2004;
Whereas, since the enactment of the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, child support
collections within the child support enforcement system have grown every year,
increasing from $12,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1996 to over $22,000,000,000 in
fiscal year 2004;
Whereas the number of paternities established or
acknowledged in fiscal year 2003—over 1,600,000—includes an almost 300 percent
increase in paternities established through in-hospital acknowledgement
programs promoted by the 1996 welfare reforms, and there were almost 915,000
paternities established this way in 2004 compared to 324,652 in 1996;
Whereas child support collections were made in nearly
8,100,000 cases in fiscal year 2004, significantly more than the almost
4,000,000 cases in which a collection was made in 1996;
Whereas the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996 gave States great flexibility in the use of Federal
funds to develop innovative programs to help families leave welfare and begin
employment, and to encourage the formation of 2-parent families;
Whereas annual Federal funding for under the new TANF
block grant program have been held constant at the all-time highs set in 1995,
despite unprecedented welfare caseload declines and despite the fact that
States may spend as little as 75 percent as much as they spent spending under
the prior AFDC program;
Whereas total welfare and child care funds available per
family increased over 130 percent between 1995 and 2004, from $6,934 to
$16,185;
Whereas child care expenditures have quadrupled under
welfare reform, rising from $3,000,000,000 in 1995 to $12,000,000,000 in
2004;
Whereas, under the TANF program, States have enjoyed
significant new flexibility in making policy choices and investment decisions
best suited to the needs of their citizens;
Whereas, despite all of these successes, there is still
progress to be made;
Whereas significant numbers of welfare recipients still
are not engaged in employment-related activities;
Whereas, while all States have met the overall work
participation rates required by law, in an average month, only 41 percent of
all TANF families with an adult participated in work activities for even a
single hour that was countable toward the State's work participation
rate;
Whereas, in 2002, 34 percent of all births in the United
States were to unmarried women;
Whereas, despite recent progress in reducing teen
pregnancy in general, with fewer teens entering marriage, the proportion of
births to unmarried teens has increased dramatically to 80 percent in 2002 from
30 percent in 1970;
Whereas the negative consequences of out-of-wedlock birth
on the mother, the child, the family, and society are well documented;
Whereas the negative consequences include increased
likelihood of welfare dependency, increased risks of low birth weight, poor
cognitive development, child abuse and neglect, teen parenthood, and decreased
likelihood of having an intact marriage during adulthood, and these outcomes
result despite the often heroic struggles of mostly single mothers to care for
their families;
Whereas there has been a dramatic rise in cohabitation as
marriages have declined;
Whereas an estimated 40 percent of children are expected
to live in a cohabiting-parent family at some point during their
childhood;
Whereas children in single-parent households and
cohabiting-parent households are at much higher risk of child abuse than
children in intact married families;
Whereas children who live apart from their biological
fathers are, on average, more likely to be poor, experience educational,
health, emotional, and psychological problems, be victims of child abuse,
engage in criminal behavior, and become involved with the juvenile justice
system than their peers who live with their married, biological mother and
father;
Whereas, despite the strenuous efforts of single mothers
to care for their children, a child living with a single mother is nearly 5
times as likely to be poor as a child living in a married-couple family;
and
Whereas, in 2003, in married-couple families, the child
poverty rate was 8.6 percent: in households headed by a single mother the
poverty rate was 41.7 percent: Now, therefore, be it
That it is the sense of the Congress that
increasing success in moving families from welfare to work, as well as in
promoting healthy marriage and other means of improving child well-being, as
promoted by the welfare reforms in the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, are very important Government interests
and should remain priorities for the responsible Federal and State agencies in
the years ahead for assisting needy families and others at risk of poverty and
dependence on government benefits.