[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 82 (Wednesday, June 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6218-S6219]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SCHUMER:
  S. 1027. A bill to expand the purposes of the program of block grants 
to States for temporary assistance for needy families to include 
poverty reduction, and to make grants available under the program for 
that purpose; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the Schumer-
Wellstone ``Child Poverty Reduction Act.'' This bill would create a 
fifth goal of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, 
Program to reduce poverty among families with children in the United 
States, and it would provide a $150 million annual appropriation for 
high performance bonus grants to States who reduce both the depth and 
extent of child poverty.
  Under current law, TANF has four goals: 1. provide assistance to 
needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes; 2. 
end dependency on the welfare system; 3. prevent and reduce the 
incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and 4. encourage the formation 
and maintenance of two parent families. The bill would add language 
stating that the fifth goal of TANF is ``to reduce poverty of families 
with children in the United States.''
  The TANF program currently awards ``high performance'' bonuses to 
States that rank high on outcome measures related to the program's 
goals. A total of $1 billion was provided over 5 years, averaging $200 
million per year, for this bonus. The law charges the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services with developing the criteria for measuring 
high performance in consultation with certain groups representing the 
states. Bonuses have thus far been awarded for fiscal year 1999 and 
fiscal year 2000. For fiscal year 1999 through fiscal year 2001, states 
are judged only on measures related to promoting work for the high 
performance bonus. Beginning in fiscal year 2002, new measures will be 
added that provide bonus awards to States that increase the percent of 
married couple families with children and to States that take steps to 
increase participation in food stamps, Medicaid/SCHIP and child care. 
This bill would create an additional $150 million bonus category to 
provide high performance bonus grants to all States that reduce their 
child poverty rate from the previous year's poverty rate. The grant is 
authorized from fiscal year 2003 onward. To ensure continued 
improvement, States cannot receive a bonus if their child poverty rate 
for any given year is higher than their lowest child poverty rate from 
calendar year 2002 onward. In addition, even if a State reduces the 
overall poverty rate, a State cannot receive the bonus if the average 
amount of income that the State's poor children needed to get above the 
poverty line, the average depth of child poverty, increased from the 
previous year. Each State that qualifies for a grant would receive an 
award equal to the number of the children residing in the State as a 
percentage of the number of children living in the United States. A 
qualifying State can receive no less than $1 million per year, and no 
more than 5 percent of their Basic TANF grant.
  This bill takes the important first step toward reorienting our 
thinking about the purpose of welfare ``reform.'' Many people have 
trumpeted the ``success'' of welfare reform, pointing to the enormous 
reduction in the caseload as proof of this success, but such claims 
miss the point. Reducing the rolls is the easy part--just kick people 
off, close their cases, and wish them well. The more important, and 
infinitely more difficult, part is the reduction of poverty. When 
advocates of welfare ``reform'' talk about ending dependency, there is 
clearly a presumption that they are also advocating moving these same 
families toward economic self-sufficiency. But the reality of the 
situation is that the welfare rolls have declined much more quickly 
than the poverty rate, and it is not at all clear that those families 
who have lost their benefits have moved out of poverty. Of particular 
concern is the fact that too many children in this country continue to 
live in poverty.
  What do we know about the well-being of poor children in this 
country? We know that the number of children who live in poverty has 
declined. In 1998, 18.9 percent of children in the United States lived 
in poverty. In 1999 that figure dropped to 16.9 percent. But before we 
start celebrating, let's think about what this really represents. In 
this period of unheralded economic growth, child poverty has decreased 
by

[[Page S6219]]

two percent. Two percent. Unprecedented, rewrite the economic 
textbooks, prosperity, and childhood poverty has decreased by only two 
percent.
  Worse, though, we also know that poor children are on average now 
more poor than ever before. Their families have incomes further below 
the poverty level than in any other year that this information has been 
collected. And researchers point to the decline in cash assistance and 
food stamps as a primary cause. The percentage of poor children whose 
families received cash assistance fell from 62 percent in 1994 to 43 
percent in 1998; the percent of poor children who received food stamps 
dropped from 94 percent to 75 percent from 1994 to 1998; and a million 
people became uninsured in 1998. Our Nation's programs, designed to 
meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens, are serving fewer of 
them. This is what we call success? I've said it before and I'll 
continue to say it for as long as we have this debate simply reducing 
the welfare rolls is not success. Reducing the rolls is not the same 
thing as reducing poverty, our real goal, a goal we have not come close 
to reaching.
  It is critical that we reframe the public discourse so that welfare 
``reform'' is about ending poverty, not simply reducing the rolls, and 
we must make it part of a larger discourse about the needs of working 
families in this country. After all, there are about 6 million people 
on the welfare rolls, but there are 32 million people 12 million 
children living in poverty, 43 million people who are uninsured, 30 
million people who are hungry, more than 13 million children who are 
eligible for child care assistance who aren't receiving any, more than 
12 million people teetering on the edge of homelessness, and an 
estimated 6.9 million people in this country earning only the minimum 
wage unable to move their families out of poverty even by working full-
time, year-round. As we begin to consider reauthorization of the 
welfare ``reform'' bill, we need to understand that whatever debate we 
have won't be just about welfare. We need to understand that what we 
will really be talking about is poverty, about hunger and homelessness, 
about whether or not our children are safe, about whether or not they 
come to school ``ready to learn,'' about whether or not they grow and 
prosper. The debate we will have is not simply about what is good for 
the 6 million people in this country receiving public assistance, or 
even the 32 million people living in poverty, but it will be a debate 
about what is good for our country. It will be a debate about our 
priorities.
  Any investment we make in the needs of low-income families will be 
paid back to us a thousand-fold in the well-being of our children, our 
neighborhoods, and our communities. And the cost of not investing in 
these families is similarly multiplied when we see our children fall 
behind in grade school and high school, when we bear witness to 
horrible acts of violence committed by children against children, and 
when we face a cycle of poverty that seems nearly unbreakable. I look 
forward to the day when the needs of all families are met, when we 
ensure that every member of our community leads a life of dignity, able 
to provide for themselves and their families. And I have to believe 
that such a day will come, although I worry that it may not come soon 
enough.
  We must do more to reduce both the extent and the depth of poverty in 
this country, and right now is the time to do so. Right now we have the 
resources to ensure that no family, no child, is left behind. The 
Schumer-Wellstone ``Child Poverty Reduction Act'' is a step in this 
direction. I urge each of my colleagues to support this bill.
                                 ______