[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 50 (Wednesday, April 29, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E703-E704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    WELFARE REFORM JUST ENDS WELFARE

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                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 29, 1998

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, today's Washington Post article about 
Arkansas Governor Huckabee's flight from a group of welfare protesters 
confirms my greatest fear about the 1996 welfare law--welfare reform 
was about cutting caseloads, not about helping ex-welfare recipients 
become self-sufficient. In the first 13 months after welfare reform was 
signed into law in August 1996, welfare caseloads dropped 19 percent 
nationwide. Almost 2.4 million fewer people received welfare assistance 
in September 1997 than in August 1996. The rate of welfare recipiency 
in the United States has reached its lowest level since 1969.
  What's happening to these families and children? Olivia Golden, the 
Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary responsible for 
implementing the welfare reform law, told the Ways and Means Committee 
last month that ``one of the challenges we face is to get better 
information about what is happening to families who are leaving 
assistance.'' The protest's in Little Rock complained that they haven't 
been able to find jobs. Ms. Golden confirmed that, when she reported 
that research from several states suggests that 50 to 60 percent of 
families leaving welfare are employed at follow-up. That means 40 to 50 
percent were not employed.
  The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation recently released an 
interim report on its multi-year evaluation of Florida's Family 
Transition Program, one of the first programs to include a time limit 
on the receipt of cash assistance. Although claiming that longer-term 
follow-up is needed to track how people fare in the aftermath of 
reaching the time limits, MDRC found that only 52 percent of the FTP 
group were employed two years after entering the study despite an 
unusually generous array of support services and financial incentives. 
Nonetheless, almost everyone who reached the time limit had their 
benefits entirely canceled.
  In the almost two years since passage of the Republican welfare 
reform law, a period of sustained economic growth and low unemployment, 
we have learned two things about the effects of the law--nearly one 
million families are no longer receiving welfare assistance and only 
about one-half of the families who have left welfare are working. 
Unfortunately,

[[Page E704]]

my dire predictions about the impact of welfare reform are being borne 
out--imposing time limits and ending assistance to needy families 
leaves them out in the cold whether or not jobs are available.
  The article is as follows:

               Huckabee Flees Forum After Welfare Protest

       Little Rock, April 28.--Angry demonstrators pounded their 
     fists on Gov. Mike Huckabee's vehicle today after he fled a 
     conference that they crashed.
       About 250 protesters, complaining that ex-welfare 
     recipients haven't been able to find jobs, stormed the hall 
     where Huckabee was scheduled to talk, but the governor left 
     the Southwest Regional Civil Rights Conference rather than 
     speak with them.
       ``I'm disappointed for the people that came from other 
     places and I would have loved to have been part of the 
     conference, but that's life,'' Huckabee said.
       The protesters charge that former welfare recipients 
     haven't been able to find jobs since being dropped from the 
     rolls. The number of welfare recipients in Arkansas has 
     fallen from more than 21,000 last June to fewer than 14,000 
     last month.
       The protest was organized by the Association of Community 
     Organizations for Reform Now. Huckabee left the hotel as 
     protesters called on him to speak on the welfare issue.
       Huckabee's office called the protest an insult to the civil 
     rights workers at the conference. About 900 people from 
     Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas attended.

     

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