[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WAIVING WORK REQUIREMENTS
IN THE TANF PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 28, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-HR02
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman
SAM JOHNSON, Texas SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington
DEVIN NUNES, California JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington XAVIER BECERRA, California
CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois MIKE THOMPSON, California
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
TOM PRICE, Georgia EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
VERN BUCHANAN, Florida RON KIND, Wisconsin
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
AARON SCHOCK, Illinois JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
LYNN JENKINS, Kansas ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas LINDA SANCHEZ, California
DIANE BLACK, Tennessee
TOM REED, New York
TODD YOUNG, Indiana
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas
JIM RENACCI, Ohio
Jennifer M. Safavian, Staff Director and General Counsel
Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington, Chairman
TODD YOUNG, Indiana LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JIM RENACCI, Ohio DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
TOM REED, New York
CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Advisory of February 28, 2013 announcing the hearing............. 2
WITNESSES
Panel One
The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Utah, and Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee............. 6
Panel Two
Kay E. Brown, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income
Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office................ 13
Jason A. Turner, Executive Director, Secretary's Innovation Group 25
Elizabeth Lower-Basch, Policy Coordinator and Senior Policy
Analyst, Center for Law and Social Policy...................... 37
Douglas J. Besharov, Normand and Florence Brody Professor, School
of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and Senior Fellow,
The Atlantic Council........................................... 49
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
All Families Deserve a Chance Coalition.......................... 84
Goodwill Industries International................................ 86
9to5............................................................. 91
Center for Fiscal Equity......................................... 92
Richard Franke................................................... 96
National Alliance to End Homelessness and The Arc................ 97
Legal Momentum................................................... 103
Marylhurst University............................................ 107
WAIVING WORK REQUIREMENTS
IN THE TANF PROGRAM
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Human Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in
Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Dave Reichert
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]
ADVISORY
FROM THE
COMMITTEE
ON WAYS
AND
MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
CONTACT: (202) 225-3625
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 21, 2013
No. HR-02
Chairman Reichert Announces Hearing on
Waiving Work Requirements
in the TANF Program
Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced
that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the proposed waiver of
work requirements in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
program. The hearing will take place at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, February
28, 2013, in Room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.
In view of the limited time available to hear from witnesses, oral
testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
Witnesses will include experts on welfare reform and individuals who
will testify on the importance of work requirements in TANF and other
social programs. However, any individual or organization not scheduled
for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration
by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the
hearing.
BACKGROUND:
Work requirements were a central feature of the landmark bipartisan
1996 welfare reform law. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF) program, created as a part of welfare reform, was designed to
end the dependence of needy families on government benefits by
promoting work, marriage, and personal responsibility. As a result of
these reforms, States shifted from primarily providing monthly checks
to recipients to instead providing benefits and services to help low-
income parents get jobs and become self-sufficient. After the 1996
reforms, the Nation saw increased work and earnings for single mothers,
a decrease in poverty among female-headed families with children, and
record declines in welfare dependence.
Since 1996, States have been required to meet statutory work
requirements or face rising financial penalties. For example, States
currently are generally expected to engage at least 50 percent of
adults collecting TANF assistance checks in work or specified work-
related activities. Certain credits and exemptions apply toward this 50
percent requirement, such as the credit for recent caseload declines
and exemptions for disabled adults. Additionally, individuals counted
as engaged in work must participate for a minimum number of hours in
work or related activities each week.
On July 12, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
issued an Information Memorandum in which they announced that the
Secretary would begin allowing States to apply for a waiver of the TANF
work requirements as part of a demonstration project related to the
employment goals of the TANF program. No such waivers had previously
been granted since the TANF program was created in 1996, nor had the
Obama Administration indicated it was contemplating such a change. On
September 20, 2012, the House of Representatives approved H.J. Res.
118, a resolution disapproving of the HHS waiver memorandum by a 250 to
164 vote.
The TANF program is currently authorized through March 27, 2013.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman Reichert stated, ``Americans
consistently believe welfare should primarily serve as a bridge to self
sufficiency, empowering able-bodied recipients with the tools to secure
a job, lift oneself out of poverty, and provide for one's family. To
meet these goals, work requirements have been the cornerstone of
empowering welfare recipients within the TANF program since 1996--
successfully increasing earnings for single mothers, decreasing
poverty, and setting record declines in government dependence. Now the
Administration claims they can ignore the law and waive these work
requirements. Congress was clear that it did not intend for HHS to have
the authority to waive these work requirements, and no prior Secretary
has claimed to have it. It is critical for us to review the damaging
effects of waiving TANF work requirements, which could result in less
work and earnings, and more poverty and government dependence.''
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will review HHS' proposed waivers of TANF work
requirements.
DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:
Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit
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please call (202) 225-1721 or (202) 225-3625.
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Chairman REICHERT. Good morning. We will call the
Subcommittee to order. Today's hearing is on the Obama
Administration's July 2012 proposal to allow States to waive
work and activity requirements for welfare recipients, often
simply called welfare's work requirements. These work
requirements originated in 1996 in the Welfare Reform Law,
which passed on a bipartisan basis after literally years of
debate.
President Clinton campaigned in 1992 on a pledge to end
welfare as we know it, and Republicans in Congress took that
seriously. The landmark 1996 reforms expected welfare
recipients to work or get education and training. The law also
capped funding while providing States new flexibility, and it
included time limits on benefits so welfare was no longer a way
of life. The years following reform witnessed some of the
greatest progress against poverty and dependence in our
Nation's history. After reform, we saw sharp increases in work
and earnings by single mothers, a 30-percent drop in poverty
among female-headed families with children and record declines
in welfare dependence with the TANF roles remaining 57 percent
below pre-reform levels, even after the 2007 recession.
The idea that welfare recipients should work for benefits
remains extraordinarily popular: Eighty-three percent of
Americans support requiring welfare recipients to work for
their benefits. And that is why so many Americans were shocked
last summer when the Obama Administration suggested States
could apply to waive these work requirements for the first
time. Current law, congressional intent, historical precedent,
and expert reviews all confirmed HHS does not have the
authority to do that. In November 1996, Ways and Means summary
of the new reforms said it best: Waivers granted after the date
of enactment may not override provisions of the TANF law that
concern mandatory work requirements.
The reason why Congress said work requirements couldn't be
waived is simple: It wanted strong work requirements. And
regardless of what the Administration suggests, simple logic
confirms, States don't need waivers to strengthen work
requirements; they only need them to weaken work requirements.
The House acted in September to repeal the Administration's
waiver policy. And, unfortunately, the Senate didn't follow
suit. Today's hearing allows us to review this issue as we
consider the next extension of TANF required before the end of
March. I believe we should make clear that Congress meant what
it said about welfare work requirements. What works is work and
aggressively preparing for work. And the Administration can't
unilaterally waive these critical features of our welfare
reform. If anything, as we will hear from several witnesses, we
should be exploring how to apply these work requirements to
other programs so States help more welfare recipients work or
prepare for work. That is the best and the only real path out
of poverty.
Without objection, each Member will have the opportunity to
submit a written statement and have it included in the record
at this point.
Mr. Doggett, I would recognize you for 5 minutes for your
opening statement.
Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I believe in the value of work. I voted for the 1996
welfare law because I supported moving people from welfare to
work. I don't believe, though there have been some spotty
successes, that that law has begun to fulfill its promise.
And I think that the responsibility for those failures is
shared by many: States who did not do their part; an
Administration that has not come forward with its own plan; and
Republicans here in Congress who have continued to build on
old, flawed stereotypes. As this TANF reauthorization has been
considered, we have moved on a stop-start basis with a number
of temporary extensions, instead of dealing with the root
causes of why we don't have more people moving into the
workforce. We have done--we have dealt with such tangential
issues as whether people were cashing their checks at a strip
club, a liquor store, or a casino; not one of the core issues.
I certainly didn't object to restricting checks from being
cashed there. But it hardly addressed the core concerns of how
we provide temporary assistance to those who are poor and how
we use those resources to get them into jobs.
Now, with yet another start-stop, we face a deadline at the
end of this month without any real and basic reforms. The only
focus has been on attempting to limit the Administration in
giving States added flexibility. In my opinion, in some areas,
they have too much flexibility already and have basically used
TANF as a slush fund to fund some of the social services that
they should have been providing themselves and were, in some
cases, providing themselves to assist those who were poor to
move into the workforce and to develop better skills. And
whether they needed additional flexibility, there is a good
argument that they should--but what we really should be doing
is a broad reauthorization of this program, looking at whether
it fulfills its original purpose and whether we can make it
work better for the taxpayer and for those that it is designed
to provide temporary assistance to.
This temporary assistance program--misnamed, I believe--is
increasingly irrelevant for most Americans that are struggling
in poverty. In response to the worst recession in our
lifetimes, enrollment in TANF grew little across the country.
In 2010, 2011, only about one in five poor children received
assistance through this program. That is the lowest level of
poor children receiving cash assistance since 1964. In my home
State of Texas, the picture is much more bleak, as it usually
is, with roughly 1 out of every 20 children receiving any cash
assistance from TANF.
I think all of us want to see fewer people receive
assistance because they found a good job. But there is no
indication that these folks who are not receiving assistance
found a good job, and no one should consider it a success when
fewer and fewer very poor children and families have access to
a program designed to serve them.
Instead of focusing on whether a waiver authority is being
misused or whether people are misusing their check at a liquor
store, it seems to me the fundamental concern ought to be on
how we do more to lift people out of poverty and have them
contribute productively to our society. Part of this strategy
should include the President's call for an increase in the
minimum wage. Right now, a family of four with one full-time
earner working for minimum wage is living in poverty, even
after counting refundable tax credits. Increasing the minimum
wage would give a pay raise to 15 million low-income workers,
and it would increase the value of work for some of those
leaving welfare. Increasing educational opportunities,
including for our youngest children, is another strategy. And,
of course, defending against those who have criticized it so
regularly, the earned income tax credit is another proven way
of helping to lift people out of poverty. And it is doing more
to lift people out of poverty than the TANF program is.
We also need to consider what changes should be made in
TANF. I wish that had been the focus of this hearing and the
focus of more attention from the Administration. We will hear
from one witness later today outlining what some of those
changes might be that could strengthen the program and make it
fulfill its original purpose. Certainly that purpose will not
be fulfilled if we see even more cuts with sequester beginning
tomorrow, another area which we need to address the attention
of the Congress.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses.
Chairman REICHERT. The gentleman's time has expired.
Thank you.
I want to remind our witnesses to limit their oral
statements to 5 minutes. However, without objection, all of the
written testimony will be made a part of the permanent record.
On our first panel this morning, we will be hearing from
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who all of us know and all of us
know has worked hard to lift people out of poverty. Senator
Hatch is the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee and
has been very active with Chairman Camp on the issue of TANF
waivers since the Administration announced its policy last
July. As his written testimony notes, he has helped draft every
major piece of legislation relating to welfare in the past two
decades, including the 1996 Welfare Reform Law, whose work
requirements are the focus of our discussion today. And during
that time, he has worked on numerous bipartisan and even
tripartisan welfare bills. We are honored to have the benefit
of Senator Hatch's deep experience and expertise on this issue
and greatly appreciate his willingness to testify.
And as all of us recognize the busy schedules among Members
and staff on the Hill, unfortunately Senator Hatch has to leave
shortly after his testimony. So if there are any questions,
they can be submitted to the Senator in writing.
Senator Hatch, good morning. Thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF UTAH, AND RANKING MEMBER, SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
Senator HATCH. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Doggett,
Members of the very important Subcommittee on Human Resources.
I want to thank you for convening this hearing and for
asking me to address all of you this morning on the Obama
Administration's proposal to waive Federal welfare
requirements.
First of all, I want to congratulate you, Chairman
Reichert, on your new role as Subcommittee Chairman. I have
been very pleased to work closely with Chairman Camp on this
important issue, and I look forward to continuing that
partnership with you and with our friends on the other side.
Your long and impressive history in law enforcement has
brought you in direct contact with some of the vulnerable
populations that programs under your Subcommittee's
jurisdiction are designed to help.
Your experience with these families will serve you well in
your capacity as the new Chairman. While I commend the
Subcommittee for holding this hearing, I regret that it is
necessary to have such a hearing in the first place. Authority
for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, as we
call it, and related programs expired at the end of fiscal year
2010.
In the years leading up to and following the expiration of
TANF, the Obama Administration never proposed a 5-year
reauthorization of these programs. In the 4 years since
President Obama has been in office, not once did a Member of
his Administration offer to meet with me to discuss the TANF
reauthorization.
Indeed, for years, the Obama Administration showed no
interest in making improvements to these programs.
That being the case, I was stunned on July 12, 2012, when,
with no advance warning, the Administration released so-called
guidance to States, informing them that the Administration had
granted itself the authority to essentially, in my opinion, gut
welfare reform by undermining important Welfare-to-Work
requirements.
Mr. Chairman, over the past 20 years, I have helped draft
every major piece of Senate legislation relating to welfare. I
was a Member of the Senate Finance Committee during the 1996
debate and helped managed the Senate floor during the Senate
consideration of welfare reform. In 2002, I worked with
Senators Breaux, Snowe, Rockefeller, and Jeffords to put forth
a series of recommendations known as the Tripartisan Agreement.
The Tripartisan Agreement formed the basis of the TANF
reauthorization legislation considered by the Senate Finance
Committee.
I also worked closely with then Chairman Grassley to
develop the bipartisan PRIDE bill. So not only do I have a long
history of developing welfare policies on a bipartisan basis, I
have also been intimately involved in all the major
deliberations on welfare policy.
That being the case, I can say with confidence that at no
time in the nearly 20 years of discussions did Members of
Congress ever contemplate granting the executive branch the
authority to waive Federal Welfare-to-Work requirements.
Now, the Obama Administration has stated that they need to
be able to waive the work requirements in order to ``explore
new ways to strengthen work requirements.'' The Obama
Administration has not elaborated on what is contemplated by
the word ``strengthen.''
However, we do know that these unknown new ways to strengthe
n work requirements do not mean limiting what counts as work to
actual work or job searches. These new ways to strengthen work
requirements do not mean actually requiring more people to
work. That is because under current law, there are no
restrictions on a State's ability to increase or strengthen the
work requirements. A State does not need a waiver to limit the
number of activities it considers work. A State does not need a
waiver to increase the required hours of work for welfare
recipients. A State does not need a waiver to increase the
number of able-bodied adults who are working in exchange for
their welfare check.
So if strengthening the work requirements does not mean
limiting what counts as work and it does not mean increasing
the number of people engaged in work for longer hours, then
what does it mean?
For guidance in answering that question, we should consider
what types of policy changes a State would need a waiver for if
the Administration had the authority to provide such waivers in
the first place. A State would need a waiver to increase the
number of activities that could count as work. For example,
adding education and substance abuse treatment to the list.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, there are already 12 different
definitions of work described in the TANF law, and some States
have demonstrated considerable creativity under the flexibility
that currently exists to count things like bedrest and personal
journaling as work.
In addition, a State would need a waiver to count toward
the participation rate, a person performing less than the
required number of hours of work per week. And a State would
need a waiver to meet a performance measure other than the
current requirement that the State engage at least 50 percent
of able-bodied adults on welfare in work and related
activities. In short, the approach envisioned by the Obama
Administration would mean less work for fewer hours and for a
smaller share of adults on welfare.
This approach is contrary to a work-first approach that has
been an integral feature of welfare reform. Over the years,
research has consistently demonstrated that a work-first
approach, combining an intense effort to engage clients in
work-related activities to foster an attachment to the
workforce, with a blended menu of work supports, such as
education, and training, has the greatest degree of success in
getting clients off of welfare.
The reason I am so vehemently opposed to the
Administration's scheme to undermine the Welfare-to-Work
requirements is I believe it will hinder, not help, adults from
exiting the welfare rolls. Put simply, allowing activities that
are not work to count as work will not get people into work.
Mr. Chairman, last year, I sent President Obama a letter
asking him to withdraw his waiver rule and submit a TANF
reauthorization to Congress. I pledged to the President I would
work in good faith with him to craft bipartisan welfare
legislation that can help fragile families progress toward
greater self-sufficiency.
To date, I have not received a response to my letter. The
President has not withdrawn his welfare waiver rule, nor has he
submitted a TANF reauthorization to Congress.
Therefore, in my opinion, Congress must act. Congress must
stop this executive overreach and prevent this Administration
from undermining key provisions of welfare reform. I am hopeful
that this hearing today will be the first step in a process
that leads the House of Representatives to pass legislation to
invalidate the Administration's welfare waiver rule. And I hope
that the Senate will act in a similar fashion.
I am counting on you. I am counting on a bipartisan effort
to really keep this work requirement as a substantial and
effective work requirement. And I will do whatever I can to
make sure that that occurs.
And I just want to thank you for holding this hearing. I
respect each and every one of you. And I know these are tough
issues. But I feel really deeply about this. And one reason
TANF worked so well is because of the work requirement, and a
lot of people found that going to work was a good thing. And
what we need to do is find better ways of opening up the doors
so they can work and get jobs they need. Thank you so much. It
has been a privilege to be with you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Hatch follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Senator, for your testimony.
Thank you for helping us understand this issue a little bit
better. We can tell that you are passionate about this and are
willing to help us in any way you can. Your presence here today
is absolutely a sign of that and your testimony, too, and your
comments after. So we look forward to working with you. Thank
you so much for being with us today.
I will repeat to the Members of the panel here that if you
have any questions for the Senator, you have the opportunity to
submit those in writing.
Thank you again, Senator.
Senator HATCH. Thank you, sir.
Good to see all of you again. Thank you for your kindness.
Chairman REICHERT. Now will the next panel please take
their seats. And we will begin the second panel of witnesses.
Thank you for being here this morning. On our second panel
this morning we will be hearing from Kay Brown, who is the
Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S.
Government Accountability Office; Jason Turner, Executive
Director, Secretary's Innovation Group; Elizabeth Lower-Basch,
Policy Coordinator and Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Law
and Social Policy; and Douglas Besharov, Normand and Florence
Brody Professor, School of Public Policy, University of
Maryland.
Welcome.
Ms. Brown, you can proceed with your testimony, please.
You have 5 minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF KAY E. BROWN, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND
INCOME SECURITY, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. BROWN. Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member Doggett, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here
today to discuss waivers of work provisions in the TANF
program. I will talk about whether States express interest in
these waivers and whether HHS granted any. My remarks are based
primarily on a report we issued last September.
As you know, one of TANF's key goals is to promote job
preparation and work to help end dependence on government
benefits. In fact, States are expected to ensure that a certain
percentage of work-eligible families participate in work
activities for a minimum number of hours each week, and these
requirements are specified in law.
Before TANF, under the Aid to Families With Dependent
Children program, 46 States received approval from HHS to
implement about 113 waivers between 1987 and 1996. These
waivers were granted under Section 1115 of the Social Security
Act and allow States to conduct pilot or demonstration projects
to test the effect of changes to the existing program.
Some of the waivers tested policies that became key
features of the TANF program, such as stronger work
requirements and, for the first time, time limits. When TANF
replaced AFDC, States with ongoing waivers were permitted to
continue to operate their programs under these waivers until
they expired. The last one expired in 2007, and no provision in
law allowed these AFDC waivers to be extended.
Further, since TANF was created, HHS has not granted any
waivers related to the program, although several States have
expressed interest. Specifically, from 2000 through 2009, we
found that five States asked HHS about the availability of
waivers under TANF. For example, two States requested waivers
because they thought that unanticipated circumstances, such as
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, might result in
their noncompliance with certain Federal TANF requirements. In
these cases, States generally were not asking for waivers to
test new approaches through pilot or demonstration projects,
which would be necessary in order to get a waiver under Section
1115, and instead, were asking to be excused from specific
requirements. HHS officials responded each time that they did
not have authority to provide waivers and offered to work with
the States to address their concerns through other
flexibilities allowed under the law.
Then, in 2001, in response to a Presidential memorandum,
HHS asked the States for ideas of how increased administrative
flexibility could lead to improved TANF outcomes. HHS documents
show that five States indicated their interest in waivers that
were specifically related to TANF work requirements. In their
response, HHS officials indicated that the Department was in
the process of reviewing its TANF waiver authority at that
time. In July 2012, HHS issued the information memorandum
indicating the Secretary's willingness to exercise Section 1150
waiver authority related to TANF work requirements.
I should clarify that we have not done an analysis of HHS'
legal authority to grant these waivers. As of September 12th of
last year, HHS documents showed that eight States had expressed
interest in pursuing these waivers. We recently learned that
two additional States have expressed interest. However, no
State has formally submitted to HHS a request for a waiver. In
conclusion, in contrast to the AFDC period before TANF, there
have been no new waivers granted under TANF. And until last
year, we found no formal documentation that HHS believed it had
authority to waive the work requirements.
This concludes my prepared statement. I am happy to answer
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
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Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Ms. Brown.
Mr. Turner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JASON A. TURNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SECRETARY'S
INNOVATION GROUP
Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Jason Turner. I am formerly Mayor Giuliani's
Commissioner for Welfare, Medicaid, and WIA during his second
term. Now I serve as the Executive Director of the Secretary's
Innovation Group, a network composed of 18 States' human
service secretaries, representing more than half the
population. Our members hail from Wisconsin, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida,
Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, and six other States. We exchange
State-innovative program ideas and support national policies
which favor work and economic self-reliance, helping families
budget discipline and orientation toward limited government.
I would like to take this opportunity to describe the
circumstances in the period leading up to the passage of the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and how it
relates to the current discussion over work requirements in the
law. During the 1980s, there was an increasing public concern
over the growth of the TANF predecessor program, AFDC, which
you are well familiar with. To address this concern, HHS
sponsored a large-scale experiment in which some families
received fairly generous, unrestricted cash benefits via a
negative income tax and a control group did not, in order to
see what the positive and negative effects were. This
experiment showed that those receiving the unrestricted welfare
benefits worked significantly fewer hours and experienced
higher levels of family dissolution than those in the control
group. In other words, free money without obligations resulted
in bad social consequences, something our grandmothers may have
remarked did not require an experiment to predict.
Partly as a result of this large-scale experiment, the
Congress passed the Family Support Act in 1988, an education
and training program intended to move recipients to work, and
based on the premise that welfare adults would qualify for jobs
and accept them if they were provided additional education and
training to improve their skill levels.
Regrettably, experience showed that this new provision of
education and training did not have this effect. In fact, the
opposite occurred from what we had hoped. In the first 5 years
after the program was activated, rather than declining, the
caseload increased by one-third to its highest level ever.
Faced with these disappointing results, HHS conducted a
multi-State, multi-year comparison of the effectiveness of the
education and training model embedded in its then Family
Support Act program against a work-first intervention,
otherwise known as a labor attachment model. Under the work-
first approach, welfare recipients are encouraged to get into
the labor force as soon as they can find a job and improve
their employment and wage circumstances from that point
forward, in contrast to the skills model, where they remain
outside the labor force while they undergo remedial education
and training.
The results unequivocally favored the work-first labor
attachment model. The research concluded, employment-focused
programs generally had larger effects on employment, earnings
and welfare receipt than education-focused programs. And given
the large number of programs examined in research and their
variety of served populations, of implementation procedures and
of different labor markets, these results provide more support
for the advantages of employment-focused programs than
education-focused ones.
With all of these considerations in mind, the Congress
spent a great deal of time evaluating alternatives as it
crafted its 1996 legislation. The resulting program allocated
funds to States with a substantial operating flexibility but
with the understanding that States must place an increasing
number of adult recipients into employment or work-related
activities.
Why didn't Congress just allocate funds via an unrestricted
block grant? I can answer this from my perch at the time in the
early 1990s as the HHS director of the AFDC welfare program and
subsequently as a State welfare director in Wisconsin while all
of this was happening. In general, States find it easy to run
voluntary programs of remedial education and training, where
slots are already available via community colleges or WIA and
recipients could take advantage of these or not, as they wish.
From a State's point of view, it is bureaucratically hard to
run a mandatory program based on work activities. This is
because a mandatory work program requires more supervision,
more creation of qualifying activities, more attendance
tracking, and more followup to assure progress is being made.
But we know from experience the harder approach is necessary.
Our member States in the Secretary's Innovation Group are
not calling for the weakening of TANF work requirements, but
the opposite. Our TANF policy brief lays out just such a policy
agenda.
Finally, as a former Federal executive branch official and
former State welfare director, I tend naturally to favor
executive branch authority and flexibility. But I also know
that this impulse can be taken too far and lead some States to
take the easy way out, when we know from robust experimentation
and the results of the TANF program, that an ambitious work-
first program will lead to increased employment and decreased
dependency. We think policies should be carefully considered by
the Congress, not abandoned by executive fiat.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner follows:]
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Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Turner.
Ms. Lower-Basch.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH LOWER-BASCH, POLICY COORDINATOR AND
SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to share CLASP's views regarding
the work rates that States must meet under the TANF program.
CLASP develops and advocates for policies at the Federal,
State, and local levels that improve the lives of low-income
people.
In calling this hearing, Mr. Chairman, you said that
welfare should empower able-bodied recipients with the tools to
secure a job, lift oneself out of poverty, and provide for
one's family. I agree. Stable employment in a well-paying job
is the best pathway out of poverty and into the middle class.
Employment is one of the key ways that people contribute to
society.
Where we may disagree, however, is whether the work
participation rate under TANF is an effective way of promoting
this goal. I do not believe that it is. The work participation
rate only measures attendance. It does not make any attempt to
measure the effectiveness of State's employment programs,
whether these programs actually get people jobs. It forces
States and caseworkers to focus on documentation rather than
helping clients and unnecessarily limits range of activities
that can be counted.
In an economy where family-supporting jobs are increasingly
limited to those with at least a post-secondary credential,
those without at least a high school diploma find it harder and
harder to find any employment. Low-income parents need access
to training that will allow them to escape the cycle of low
wages, unstable work, and poverty.
Many States have particularly highlighted as a problem the
limits on counting basic education and GED classes toward the
work rates. States have learned much about work-focused
education in the decades since such programs were last
evaluated, and we are also in a very different economic
context.
While the labor force participation of low-income mothers
did increase dramatically during the early 1990s, this was not
primarily due to the TANF work participation rate. Rather, I
would credit the combination of the strong economy, the
messaging effect of welfare reform, and the package of
improvements that made work pay for low-income mothers. These
included a rising minimum wage, an expansion of the earned
income tax credit, child care subsidies, and public health
insurance.
States would almost certainly continue to enforce a work
expectation even in the absence of Federal requirements.
Moreover, the vast majority of low-income parents themselves
value work and want to support themselves and their families.
They do not need more work requirements but rather work
opportunities and employment support.
Looking to TANF reauthorization, we should start tracking
at the State level performance on a wide range of outcome
measuring, including employment, poverty, deep poverty, and
other measures of material hardship. TANF should not be
considered a success while millions of children are being left
in deep poverty.
States that are willing to be held accountable for the
outcomes they achieve in their programs, such as employment
entry, job retention, or poverty reduction, should be given the
ability to opt out of the process-focused participation rate,
either for the entire TANF population or for groups
participating in specific programs, such as career pathways
initiatives, in exchange for rigorous evaluation of these
efforts. Whether such a flexibility is provided through waivers
or through a new State option allowed under reauthorization,
such experiments would help identify the most effective service
models in the current environment. These pilots would also help
to identify possibilities and pitfalls, moving more broadly
from process measures to outcome-based performance measures.
In my written testimony, I do discuss some modest changes
to the work participation rate that can significantly reduce
the negative effect as it is currently designed. Foremost among
these is the replacement of the caseload deduction credit with
employment credit. I also discuss funding and the value of
creating a permanent source of support for subsidized
employment programs. These received bipartisan support at the
State level when they were funded with the TANF emergency fund.
I really think we should build on that experience.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide CLASP's
perspective.
I know welfare has often been a subject of deep disagreements.
But I do believe it is possible to find common ground in
improving the effectiveness of TANF in promoting work
opportunity for low-income parents.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lower-Basch follows:]
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Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Besharov.
STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV, NORMAND AND FLORENCE BRODY
PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, AND
SENIOR FELLOW, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL
Mr. BESHAROV. Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member Doggett,
other Members of the Subcommittee, it is good to see you again.
What a time we are in. I appreciated the comments of the
other panelists and Senator Hatch. My view is that this
waiver--and I don't know anything about its legal basis, I know
it wasn't intended when the bill was written by anyone on
either side--my sense is that this waiver both goes too far and
doesn't go far enough. And let me explain what I mean by that.
It goes too far because there was one lesson we learned
very clearly through the lead-up to welfare reform, and this is
something that Jason Turner and Senator Hatch talked about: The
evidence was really clear. The best way, as the Europeans say,
to activate welfare recipients, was to do work first, meaning
to encourage them to look for a job, and help them look for a
job. And job training had to be second or third at best.
I think that is right. I think the evidence from Europe,
which I will talk about in a minute, is similar. But it is
reinforced by the evidence in this country.
Next week, the House will take up WIA, the Workforce
Investment Act. The sad truth is the evaluations of that
program show that it is hardly effective for the low-income
families it is meant to serve. So that is why I say this waiver
goes too far. It seems to abandon work first, and it seems to
put too much reliance on a failed policy, which is our current
job training program.
But it also doesn't go far enough. And what I mean by that
is we use the phrase, both sides use the phrase, flexibility,
coordination, trying new things. But the new thing, the big
thing, the needed waiver, the needed coordination is between
TANF, which has now become something like a block grant, and a
small one at that, and SNAP, UI, and the disability program.
SNAP, UI, and disability now far, far outweigh what we spend on
TANF. They provide an alternate route for government support.
And each one of them separately has a minimum of Welfare-to-
Work, work experience, job-first provisions.
A true waiver for flexibility would do something about all
those programs. Now, I think I am here partly because, at the
University of Maryland, I study programs in socialist Europe.
And that includes now France and Italy, as well as Germany, the
Netherlands and the Nordic countries. And they are all moving
to the kind of combined work-first program that I am talking
about.
If you look for a moment, I think you have a full-size
picture of Figure 1. And this is part of the conversation we
are having about the broader U.S. economy. And I don't for a
moment want to say that it is only welfare or only disability
that causes what is a striking decline in the labor force
participation--excuse me, in the employment rate of America.
But if you look at this, the United States is in red, and
you see a sharp decline at the time of the recession. While the
Germans were increasing, the Dutch have held constant; the
French are doing things to try to improve their labor force
participation. What are most of these countries in Europe,
whether led by conservative or socialist countries, doing? They
are combining their recipient programs, the equivalent of
disability, the equivalent of SNAP, the equivalent of
unemployment insurance, into one program. They are housing
those programs in the same office.
When someone applies for any one of those programs, those
people are treated the same. The agency looks to see what the
barriers are to employment and through a combination of work-
first and other assists tries to help those people go to work.
That is why I say this waiver both goes too far and not
nearly far enough. It goes too far because I think it
undermines the original finding that led the Congress to pass
TANF, which is that work-first works.
And, secondly, it doesn't go nearly far enough because this
Administration, although it has said it supports broad waivers
across programs, didn't use this opportunity to allow the
States to combine their SNAP programs and their UI programs.
And SNAP, at least, I know there is legislative authority they
could have done.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Besharov follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you all for your testimony. We
will now move into the question phase. I will ask Mr. Turner a
question. But I noted a few comments by the panel that sort of
struck a personal note with me. Mr. Turner's comment about free
money without obligations results in bad social consequences;
Ms. Lower-Basch, what activities are actually effective in
helping people get jobs; and then Mr. Besharov, help people
look for a job and the training could be second or third in the
process.
And it just sort of reminded me of my childhood. I am the
oldest of seven children. And my father had trouble a few times
in his life finding work, especially when we moved from
Minnesota to Washington State in the 1950s. We were on--I think
they just called it State assistance back in those days or
public assistance, or something like that and stood in a food
bank line, which wasn't really a food bank back then; it was a
place that you went to, one place in Seattle, where they gave
you bags of, you know, paper bags of bulgur wheat and flour;
the staples. And I remember my father really struggling with
being on public assistance. His self-esteem was erased. There
was no pride there. There was domestic violence happening at
home, it created a lot of stress.
I don't know what happened. But eventually what he did is
he turned to an activity, and the activity was he would walk--I
know, you hear these stories all the time, ``I walked 4 miles
to school in the deep snow.'' So this is the story my father
and my mother told me, that he walked to work, to a place where
he thought he might get a job, and sat on the curb with his
lunchbox for 2 to 3 weeks and asked the guard at the guard
shack, ``Do you know if there are any openings?'' The activity
was him walking to the place where he wanted to go to work,
sitting down on the curb with his lunch bucket, and waiting.
Eventually, somebody came out and said, ``We know you are out
here wanting to work. We will hire you.'' And he got a job.
And so was that an activity that led to employment? It is
hard to define, isn't it?
I think the training then, of course, came second. He got
the job and went in and became a steelworker, where they built
railroad cars back then. Now it is Kenworth Trucking in
Seattle.
But I am sure a lot of people in this room and on this
panel or their family members can identify with those things
throughout their lives. So we really want to try to fix this.
We want to make sure that we get people back to work. And that
is the challenge here.
Mr. Turner, today we have been discussing work requirements
in the TANF program. Your testimony has provided a good summary
of how Congress arrived at the current structure of work
requirements in the TANF program. But TANF is only one program
among many that are intended to help low-income families. Do
other similar programs that provide help to low-income families
have anything comparable to the TANF work requirements? If not,
should these programs have activity requirements more like
those in TANF?
I think, Mr. Besharov, you sort of touched on that a little
bit.
Mr. Turner, comment, and then maybe Mr. Besharov could
speak to it.
Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will leave it to Mr. Besharov to comment on the specific
programs.
But let me just say in response to that that work
activation or work activity, even where private employment is
not available immediately, has tremendous benefits to anybody
in any circumstance receiving assistance. The benefits to
staying active, such as you described in your family history,
are immense. We know, for instance, that those who are engaged
in a work activity may benefit by keeping active, by keeping
social with other people, by making connections with
prospective employers or other people that can help them find
employment. We know that they stay healthier. We know that if
you are not active, you tend to become isolated, and you stay
at home. We know that your health declines. Depression
increases. Isolation sets in. Substance abuse goes up. So the
longer you are inactive, after having been employed, the more
your prospects decline over time.
And so one of the things that work activation does, if you
think of this as being a whole population of low-income people
that are being served on welfare, a subset of that can be
employed in the economy. And like an accordion, it goes up and
down. The private economy takes more people and then takes less
people. But you want to keep the entire population activated
and doing something so that they are on the bench, ready to get
off and go back into the football game.
So, in a sense, work activation is a program idea for all
seasons, whether it is--whether the economy is strong or weak.
Mr. BESHAROV. Thank you.
Let me take SNAP, food stamps, as an example. It is a very
large program now. Tomorrow, I am going to be speaking on a
panel at the USDA on this question of how to activate food
stamp recipients. An issue is that many of them, about 30
percent of all SNAP households, have earnings. But there is a
substantial number of people who receive food stamps who aren't
working. And the question, the challenge for the Congress is to
make a distinction between those groups and find a way for the
nonworking recipients to be activated, to use the European
term.
And I really want to emphasize that even at this time of
high unemployment, work first, job search works. The Europeans
have done studies because they have higher unemployment rates
than we do. And the reason I asked an economist about this,
what is the fancy word, is because I am going to testify. And
it is variance from the mean. That is a fancy way of saying
that while some counties today have unemployment rates of 25
percent, other counties, other localities have unemployment
rates of 5 percent. Some places have no jobs for aerospace
engineers but loads of jobs, entry-level jobs. So we can't even
use the unemployment rate as a reason for not encouraging work
first. We just have to apply it in a reasonable and confident
way.
I think that the TANF rules, as they were, tended to do
that. We saw very few examples of people saying TANF has been
unfair or the State agencies have been unfair during the
recession. And I think that speaks well of the system that the
Congress adopted now almost 20 years ago.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for your response.
Mr. Doggett, you are recognized for questioning.
Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you very much.
Ms. Lower-Basch, let me ask you a very hypothetical
question. Let's suppose that we lived in a world in which a
significant number of Members of Congress did not feel there
was political advantage in building on old stereotypes of
welfare Cadillacs, of members of our society devoting their
days to using taxpayer money at liquor stores and strip clubs,
of numbers of Americans who desired to just live on the dole
instead of to work, and that instead of building on those
stereotypes there was a genuine, broadbased, bipartisan
interest in Congress to lift people out of poverty. And let's
suppose we lived in a hypothetical world where an
Administration was not afraid of being stereotyped itself and
provided some bold leadership with the TANF law coming up for
reauthorization to make recommendations about how we might get
people out of poverty and that this law and this
reauthorization could play at least a limited measure in doing
that. What would you see in that hypothetical world as the key
elements that we need to have in a law focused on lifting
people out of poverty, reducing the underclass in this society?
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. Thank you. That is a big question. And,
obviously, TANF by itself is not going to lift everyone out of
poverty. Clearly, the other programs that Mr. Besharov
mentioned are very important. The minimum wage, and the labor
market as a whole. So, obviously, TANF is only going to be a
piece. Within TANF, I do think it is engaging people in work
activities, to the extent that they are able. I do think it is
recognizing that some people are going to need to take the more
indirect path, that, you know, if people are in the middle of
being homeless, if their kids are about to go into foster care,
that they need to focus on getting housing or resolving the
problems that are putting them in crisis. If they are--do have
mental health or substance abuse issues, they might get a job,
but they are going to get fired from it, you know, if they are
really in trouble. So they need to resolve those issues and
then move to work.
At a Federal level, I do believe in providing flexibility
to States in return for real accountability on their
accomplishments; as I said, I think funding subsidized
employment is--that is clearly, when the public, private sector
jobs are not available, a great way to give people real work
experience, real connections to the work. And it also helps the
employers. We know a lot of small businesses benefited from
that during the recession.
Mr. DOGGETT. Some of the testimony has indicated that the
job training and educational opportunities really don't
accomplish very much. And it does appear that some of these job
training programs have not been very successful.
What is your assessment of the role in any reform we have
of the outcomes we should require concerning education and job
training programs.
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. Right. So let me start with the jobs
evaluation, which is the study that did drive a lot of this
belief that education doesn't work. And those programs clearly
were not very effective. People were in very low-intensity
programs. They didn't get anywhere. We know now you need to
have credentials that have value in the labor market. You need
to be much more connected to what employers say they need and
not just more classroom-based. We have learned a lot in the
past 20 years. The economy has also, frankly, changed. The
unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma is
twice what it is for anyone else. And employers are
increasingly unwilling to just hire the folks like your dad,
who have a great attitude but don't have any of the skills.
They want people ready to show up and do the job on the first
day. So we need to give people access to that training.
Mr. DOGGETT. We have already let one program, the
supplemental grants under TANF, expire. That was a benefit in
Texas and a total of 17 States. What is the effect of losing
that supplemental program and how should it be a factor in
looking at further revisions or reauthorization of TANF.
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. Right. So, overall, the value of the TANF
block grant has been fixed in nominal dollars since it was
created in 1996. So it has lost about 30 percent of its value.
In the 17 States that got supplemental grants, obviously, the
cut has been even greater.
As we know, States do a lot of different things with their
TANF block grants. So, in some cases, it is hard to pick
specific things. But we know, in recent years, States have been
cutting actually their Welfare-to-Work contracts; in many
cases, providing less services. In many cases, child care has
gotten cut back, which means that in some States, people are
back to this crazy Catch-22, where you have to go on welfare in
order to get a child care subsidy because the waiting list for
child care for working poor is so long. All of these things
happen when funding gets squeezed over time.
Mr. DOGGETT. I thank you and all the witnesses, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Doggett.
Mr. Kelly, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner, I was really interested in your testimony. One
of the things is the dissolution of the family. When I looked
at the title of this, the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, the key to that being temporary, again, being a
bridge from one point to another. And when we look at all these
programs, we look at what the intentions were and then how far
we get away from some of those things.
But in your testimony, you talk--I think it is on page 1,
about the dissolution of families. If you could just address
that a little bit. Because I think the concern is--and coming
from the private sector, I never, ever, in my lifetime ever
regretted investing one penny in any type of a program that
would train the people that worked for me in our dealership to
get from where they were to where they could go, depending on
their potential. But the key was we already had jobs for them.
We had a market waiting for them. We had a way for them to rise
from where they were.
I just look at some of these programs and I think, Ms.
Lower-Basch, you just made a statement, we are so far away from
what we intended originally.
Thanks for the variance in means. That is great.
And I have only been here 2 years. But the idea was a great
idea. But we want it to be a bridge from where you are to where
you want to be and where you can be and where you should be.
So, Mr. Turner, talk about this dissolution of family.
Because I see in our culture right now, in our society, the
basic family structure being broken down for many different
reasons. A lot of it has to do with the economy. But you have
to be able to take care of your own. You have to be able to
take care of yourself. And you have to be able to dream that
you can actually rise from where you started to wherever you
want to go.
This is troubling, is it not?
Mr. TURNER. Yes, I think you are right. Absolutely, it is
troubling. And the family is the original income transfer
program, if you will, meaning, fathers, mothers, and children
all transfer support to each other within the family unit. And
once the family unit is dissolved, and fathers and mothers go
their separate ways, it is very difficult for government to
substitute as a parent or as an income source for the family.
What they found out in this experiment is that over time,
in 3 to 5 years of samples, both blacks and whites, and to a
lesser extent Chicanos, had marital dissolution effects that
were significant.
We don't know precisely how that works. But we think that
when there is an income that comes in that is not connected to
the father or the mother's active employment and bringing money
into the family, that the two parties tend to separate both
psychologically and have different sources of income and,
because they have an alternative source of income, tend to stop
working and family breakup occurs.
Mr. KELLY. When you expand that and you look at different
programs that are available, really it is that ability to stay
together as a family to get through the hard times that makes
it very, very real then that as you go forward, as a child, if
you see your parents working that way and you know they depend
on each other for the general good of the whole family, then it
works.
I have noticed, at least in my lifetime--I don't have data
to support this, this is just what I have noticed--I have
noticed that those folks who really have that strong family
bond, that nuclear family, tend to be able to get through hard
times really well and then tend to duplicate those same
experiences as they get older.
So I know these programs are all necessary. And I think
that we want to make sure that they are reaching the goal that
we intend for them.
So I want to thank you all for being here today. It is so
important that we hear from you and that we continue this open
dialogue to find out what we can do to really help our fellow
citizens who need our help right now, but make sure that at the
end, the end result actually gets to where we want it to be and
we don't create some type of a model that leads to a further
dissolution of the family and a further separation of those
roles I think we consider so basic in our society.
I thank you.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I, too, want to thank our witnesses for being here and
for their testimony.
You know, as I listened to the discussion and as I thought
about it prior to coming, Ms. Brown, am I correct when I recall
that you indicated that since the creation of TANF, there have
been very few requests for waivers from States?
Ms. BROWN. That is correct.
Mr. DAVIS. Do you have any idea why there may not have been
any?
Ms. BROWN. Well, we have been talking about this. And I
think one of the things to bear in mind is that in the early
years after TANF was created, you know, States did have a great
deal of flexibility, and they were experimenting in designing
their own programs. And as time went on, the requirements for
meeting their work participation rate and the constraints that
States faced in meeting those work participation rates may have
at that point increased some of the interest that we saw in
more recent years asking for waivers. But beyond that, we know
what was requested and we know what HHS said, but we have not
done a lot of work on the reasons behind that.
Mr. DAVIS. And you have not had to do a lot of work on
trying to determine whether you would or would not grant a
waiver. If nobody is asking, then you don't really have to deal
a great deal with that. Right?
Ms. BROWN. I see your point. Yes.
Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Basch, let me ask you, the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office testified last week that the budget
cuts in the sequester, which begins tomorrow, would reduce
employment by 750,000 jobs by the end of the year.
How do you think this might affect or impact our efforts to
take people from welfare and put them to work?
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. Obviously, as, you know--a few of the job
losses from the sequester may directly impact low-income
parents. Both--you know, some of them may work as school aids
or something like that, that would be affected. But it is more
likely that low-income people will feel the indirect effects of
the overall economy and reduced job growth and reduced jobs.
So, yes, it will make it harder for people to find work. Many
low-income families will obviously be affected by the direct
spending cuts, things like Head Start and WIC as well.
Mr. DAVIS. You know, I feel that there is a tremendous
amount of myth that is projected, percolated about the
willingness of people and the desire of individuals to work. I
have lived in low-income communities all of my life, from the
time I was born until even today. And many of those individuals
had some difficulty. I was intrigued by the Chairman's story
relative to his childhood because my family had pretty much the
same experience. I can recall my father saying that he would
rather drink muddy wine than stand in a line to get some food
and sleep in a hollow log. I mean, that was his expression.
And so this notion somehow that there are these vast
numbers of people who want to live off public help, I think is
more myth than reality.
Are you aware of, Ms. Basch, programs that really help
facilitate the entre of individuals into the workforce, and
what are some of those?
Chairman REICHERT. Could you make your answer short? Time
has expired. Go ahead.
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. I just want to say that, you know, we do
think it requires both pieces; it requires the skills for the
jobs but also the actual connection to the employers who are
hiring. We know successful programs don't just train people up
and then send them out in the world. They really make those
direct connections from employers and, in some cases, give them
the opportunity to demonstrate their work skills.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Renacci, you are recognized.
Mr. RENACCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
You know, there was some discussion about labor and my
colleague was talking about sequestration, maybe the loss of
jobs. But, Mr. Besharov, we talked about in your testimony how
a number of European countries have incorporated activity or
Welfare-to-Work provisions into their social programs. Many of
those countries have done so while dealing with high
unemployment and other difficult labor market conditions. Based
on your research in the area, what do you say or what have
those European countries said to those who argue Welfare-to-
Work policies cannot be effectively implemented or should be
suspended during time of high unemployment?
Mr. BESHAROV. Well, that is the crucial question here. And
I think the answer depends on the political system or the
political party in charge in each country. There has been a
real pushback in Germany and somewhat of a pushback in some of
the Nordic countries. But in the countries run by liberal or
socialist governments, such as France, there has been no
pushback. Here is the argument: They look at that chart which I
showed you, Figure 1, and they see something between 60 and 70
percent of the people who are eligible to work in the right age
category working, but 30, 35 percent not working. And they see
that number growing. And they don't think that they have a
future, economically, when the number is decreasing, when there
are fewer people working.
And so they take a deep breath and they say, we have to
push as many people as possible into looking for work. When
they do that, two things happen: Number one, people who
otherwise were disenchanted or discouraged about finding work,
some of them find work. And the other part that happens is
because there are people looking for jobs, and there is a push
and pull about this, because there is more supply of workers,
especially low-income workers, employers are more likely to
expand and hire people.
Now, this isn't a magic potion. And we are not going to
eradicate unemployment. But we do have to use every means at
our disposal to get the United States back in fighting shape.
And this is one of the ways. One of the ways is to encourage
everyone who is of the age to work and healthy enough to work
to look for work.
Mr. RENACCI. Thank you.
Mr. Turner, Congress has spent years designing, reviewing,
and modifying work requirements in TANF programs. And it is for
that reason I strongly believe that any changes to requirements
should be first handled by Congress through legislation. But I
would ask, if this waiver is allowed to move forward, is it
possible that States could maybe even want to go further with
waiver programs like this?
Mr. TURNER. Well, what we know from good work programs is
that even if there--even if somebody is not on unemployment, if
he is engaged in a work activity that is creating something of
value, it is a value to a recipient himself. For instance, in
New York City, welfare recipients engaged in work in parks
throughout the city, which has increased their level of
cleanliness from 85 percent to 95 percent. So why is that
important? Because those people going into the parks are
learning important lessons about work habits, reliability,
staying on the job, taking direction from supervisors. These
are the things that employers say are most missing among the
low-income population; work habits, as opposed to work skills.
Okay.
So to answer your question, from that point of view, I
think that once you get away from a program which offers an
opportunity to actually provide work in a work-like setting and
you do things like bedrest or staying in a remedial class, you
are losing the opportunity to do what we call work hardening or
getting organized around the idea that to take a job, you have
to be prepared to keep the job, to stay on the job, and to get
along with people. That is the main thing that you can learn
outside of the labor force in a workforce setting.
Mr. RENACCI. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman REICHERT. Mr. Lewis.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this hearing.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today.
Today the House is considering a bill to reauthorize the
Violence Against Women Act, one of the most important life-
changing bills Congress ever created. I don't know how many of
you know that TANF is an important part of the puzzle in
helping survivors of domestic violence get back on their feet.
A Huffington Post article broke down the challenges facing poor
parents in the State of Georgia, my State, and deterring
applicants. In fact, the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic
Violence gave up helping women apply for TANF benefits.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit the full
article for the record.
Chairman REICHERT. Without objection.
[The submission of The Honorable John Lewis follows:]
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Mr. LEWIS. Now, I happen to believe that poverty is a
radical evil in our society. At one time, when we had full
employment, unemployment was down to 4 percent, right? And we
said we had full employment. There were still hundreds and
thousands and millions of poor people. And we had the war on
poverty. We had all these groups. Can any member of this panel
suggest or tell me what should we do as a society, as a Nation,
to maybe have a radical good, to abolish poverty from this
land?
It is shameful, it is a disgrace. When you travel through
America, in spite of all of the resources, there are still so
many people left behind. You are right: They are black. They
are white. They are Latino. They are Asian American. They are
Native American. I travel and I have seen this country. If we
had all the resources, if we had millions and billions of
dollars, if we end the wars, stop spending so much money on
bombs and missiles and guns and take care of our people here at
home, what would you suggest that we do? What proposal? What
plan?
Ms. LOWER-BASCH. As I said, you know, I think it is going
to be a multi-tiered thing. One problem is there are an awful
lot of people who are working, in many cases full time, year
round, and they are still poor. Because we have an economy that
has a lot of low-wage jobs. So there is a piece about both, you
know, improving the labor market and providing supports for
workers. There is a piece about, you know, people who have
disabilities that really do prevent them from working. There
are lots of different--there is no magic bullet. It is going to
be 30 bullets, you know--I hate to use that metaphor. Let me
not.
But it is going to be a lot of different pieces to the
puzzle to put together. TANF is one of the pieces, and it has
been a broken link. Let's take your example of Georgia. Georgia
used to pay TANF caseworkers to go to domestic violence
shelters to help women apply for cash assistance. They stopped
doing that because they decided they did not want to make it
easy for people to get cash assistance. You know, you don't
want people to break up marriages when they are good marriages.
But when there is a domestic violence situation, you want TANF
to be that lifeline. And it is not always there. So, yes, it
has been a broken piece in the puzzle.
Mr. BESHAROV. I am struck, Mr. Lewis, by the point you made
and the point Mr. Kelly made. Because they are actually two
parts of the same problem, which is the weakness of the family.
I was at a job training program in Newark, inner city
Newark. And these were women, almost entirely minority, who had
been practical nurses, and they were in a training program to
become registered nurses. And this is automatic; you go from
$25,000 a year to $45,000 or $50,000. It just happens--you
know, there is no magic bullet. It is once they get the skills,
whether it is the Affordable Care Act or whatever, there are
jobs. So this is automatic.
And there were about 150 women in the room. And I said,
``What is the biggest problem that you have?'' And one of them
got up and said, ``Well, the man in my life just doesn't make
it easy for me. One day I went home, all my furniture was in
the street, and he had set fire to it.''
Now, I said to myself, this is crazy. I am sure, I said,
``How many other women have a problem like that?'' Three hands.
I said, ``You mean exactly like that?'' They said, ``Yes.''
Now, we have MDRC research from New York City when they did
their program of job training and support for inner city women
who wanted, volunteered, to go through job training and find a
job. And what they found that was one of the major reasons why
those women didn't make it is because the men in their lives
did not support the idea of them becoming independent.
So some part of this, some part of this is about family
relations. We may call it family violence. We may call it the
broken family. But a part of this is getting these young--I am
feeling this age issue--getting these young people to do it
right.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Young, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, as
well.
This is an important conversation. This really does fit
into the larger picture of how we address poverty in this
country. So I am glad that Mr. Lewis brought that up.
This is such a multifaceted challenge. Of course, the
program
we are here to discuss today plays a very important role in
that puzzle. The weakness of the family. I have to say, before
I get into the immediate concern of this hearing, I think if we
could get the economy to grow a little faster, we would
alleviate so much. I saw all heads nodding affirmatively on our
panel when I said that. It would create more wherewithal so
that we could fund these important programs, provide more hope
and opportunity for people that--perhaps incentivize them to,
if they are not already searching for work, to go out and
search more actively, and just restore some hope and dignity
and prosperity in this country. Because we know those on the
margins of society who benefit from many of these important
programs are most adversely hurt during a down economy. So
reforming the Tax Code, the regulatory code and so on are
things that we really need to do.
With that said, I know we are here today to discuss the
implications of HHS' unilateral decision to waive work
requirements from the TANF program. At a time when national
poverty rates and welfare spending are very high, at least
compared to recent history, Congress needs to ensure that those
who need help are receiving TANF in a manner that provides a
path to self-sufficiency, which includes ensuring that the job
training programs that are out there are effective. But we must
not waive requirements that have led to more jobs and earnings
and also reduced poverty and welfare dependence. On that, I
hope all of us can agree.
Now, before the 1996 Federal Welfare Law was signed into
law by President Clinton, my home State of Indiana, under a
Democrat Governor, Evan Bayh, created work requirements for
Hoosiers who received welfare benefits. This ensured Hoosiers
who were receiving benefits really got the benefits they
needed. But we targeted this program toward those who needed
the benefits most.
As former Governor Bayh later said, the bottom line was
trying to make someone self-sufficient. We were trying to
achieve two values: One was the notion of community, and also
responsibility. So this is exactly, in my estimation, what the
1996 Federal Welfare Reform Law did, and is exactly what the
Obama Administration is undermining through this unilateral
decision by HHS.
So if HHS now claims they have the authority to waive work
requirements, I am curious, and I will direct this question to
Ms. Brown, I know GAO hasn't conducted a legal analysis about
the authority to grant these waivers unilaterally, but did you
indicate that you have reviewed documentation showing that
there is no evidence the Administration has believed it had the
authority in the past? So does this set us up on a sort of
slippery slope here? What conceivably could HHS claim they
could waive within the TANF program in the future?
Ms. BROWN. I am quite sure that our General Counsel will
advise me that I have to be very careful with this question. I
think----
Mr. YOUNG. Please don't. Just be candid and forthright.
Ms. BROWN. I think the issue is that what we saw when we
looked at the records was a number of requests that States have
made that were not necessarily grand redesigns. And during that
process, HHS said, again and again, different people, different
levels, we don't have that authority, we don't have that
authority.
And then, as the President issued a memorandum telling
Federal agencies to talk to States and locals about how to
remove some of the burdens so that programs could work more
effectively, they were hearing from States that they would like
waivers. And HHS said they were beginning to think about
whether--they were revisiting whether they had waiver
authority. That is as much as I know.
Mr. YOUNG. That was a very carefully constructed response.
But much appreciated. And I thank you very much for your
testimony.
I yield back.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you.
Mr. Griffin, you are recognized.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for holding this hearing.
Mr. Besharov, I want to ask you, you talked about--Mr.
Young was talking about the theory upon which the change was
made. I want to know why it was made. Why would we take away
the requirement that some sort of work--we have heard a lot
about traditional work here. But I think that is a
mischaracterization. I am looking at all the different
combinations that one can engage in to fulfill the work
requirement. There are all sorts of different things. And it
seems to me the point of this is to get people engaged in
productive work-related, work-type activities; not traditional
work, necessarily. But why would the Administration do this?
Mr. BESHAROV. Well, let me just quickly follow up on what
Ms. Brown said.
The authority the Administration is using to justify the
waivers is quite a big gun. It is saying we have the authority
to modify what you, the States, have to report to us;
therefore, we can waive any portion of TANF. It is not just
this portion, based on that.
I have a feeling if the shoe was on the other foot, which
is to say, if this were a Democratic House and a Republican
Congress, we would have the same debate, only with different
faces on the argument. This is a major expansion of executive
authority if it is legal. If it is legal, it is because of
quite a loophole; it is the teeniest little loophole that they
are driving a truck through.
You asked the question, though, why might they want to do
it? And it is because of the argument you are seeing here,
which is, some people read the history and the current
situation to mean the best way to get people into a productive
job is for them to get into a productive job and increase their
earnings and experience. Other people think the best way to do
it is through education and training first. That is a big
argument. It was not quite settled in 1996. But for a while,
the work-first people had it; they were going with it. The
people who are on the losing end of that argument are, in large
measure, in the Administration. So they get now, as the
President says, I won the election. So they are revisiting this
argument about work-first versus job training. I think that is
what it comes down to. I think they are wrong, but I think
they--it is a longstanding argument.
One is never--I was trained as a lawyer--one is never
supposed to ask a witness a question you don't know the answer
to. But I believe, Jason, I believe it is the case that before
you became Commissioner in New York, one half--one half of the
women at City College were on welfare.
Mr. TURNER. Yes, that is actually true. And beyond that,
Mr. Besharov, they didn't graduate.
Mr. GRIFFIN. We will save time for you to ask him
questions.
Mr. BESHAROV. Sorry. I apologize.
Mr. GRIFFIN. My time is up.
It looks to me like education is a big part of combinations
that I am looking at. For those of us who have spent a lot of
time getting an education and had spent a lot of time working,
I think we can do a good job assessing which is the best
preparation for life. But, correct me if I am wrong, and I know
that there was some sensitivity to getting into this by Ms.
Brown, but the Administration was--they were opposed to,
legally opposed to changing this before they were in favor of
it. Is that fair? Could you speak to that? If she can't, can
you?
Mr. BESHAROV. I think this was a new interpretation that
reversed the opinion that HHS had for many years. It is clearly
a new interpretation. And it gives them authority that many
people, including HHS, didn't know it had before.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you, Mr. Besharov.
Looks like I am out of time.
Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Griffin.
Thank you all for your testimony today. I also want to
thank the Members for being here at this important hearing. We
have lots of work to do. Hopefully, we can come to an agreement
so we can help those people out in our Nation who really need
our help.
A reminder to all Members, if you have additional questions
for the witnesses, they will be submitted in writing, please.
And we would appreciate receiving your responses when you get
their questions in writing for the record within 2 weeks.
We now adjourn the meeting, thank you.
[Whereupon, at 10:30 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the Record follow:]
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