[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 14, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               RURAL TANF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow this body will take up the 
reauthorization of the 1996 welfare law. Much has been said about this 
bill and no doubt debate will go on for some time. However, remarkably 
little has been said about one aspect of it, the rural aspect.
  It will not be surprising to Members of this body that there is a 
difference between urban and rural areas. In fact, let me just tell my 
colleagues, 237 out of the 250 poorest counties in the United States in 
1998 were nonmetropolitan, and that persists today.
  One-half of rural American children and female heads of household 
live in poverty. Rural workers are nearly twice as likely to earn the 
minimum wage and 40 percent less likely to move out of low wage, entry 
level positions. Six out of 10 rural people in poverty do not own a 
car. The rural urban earning gap persists and actually has widened 
through the latter part of the 1990s. There is a gap of 73 to 70 
percent.
  Mr. Speaker, as we look at making work an essential part of the 
welfare effort, and I believe that work should be, in fact I think work 
is very honorable and we should encourage everyone to find the 
satisfaction as well as the responsibility of doing something that is 
valuable to themselves but also will have income, but the reality is 
this: Labor markets in rural areas are often very limited. There is a 
high unemployment rate in rural areas because the opportunities are not 
there.
  So if we are indeed encouraging that more people should work, we need 
to then speak to putting in the infrastructure for training, jobs, day 
care and transportation, particularly those areas in the Mississippi 
Delta, the Appalachia and the Lower Rio Grande Valley and in Indian 
Country. It is in 240 of those 250 counties I talked about. So there 
are 240 counties in this country, the poorest counties, indeed will 
have difficulty finding jobs, maintaining the same work they had 3 
years ago. Their unemployment indeed has gone up and the job 
opportunities have gone down.
  The third exemption from time limits for counties with high rates of 
unemployment failed, let me say that again, failed to address the 
problem adequately in more rural areas. Official unemployment 
statistics underestimate the true rate of unemployment. There are many 
discouraged workers with few opportunities that do not even bother to 
go to the unemployment office or go seeking assistance because they 
know there are so little job opportunities. They know jobs do not 
exist, and therefore they do not even bother.
  So if we use the known statistical data, that in itself is false, but 
also what we do know is that there is a lack of opportunity, and if 
indeed we wanted to find how States were responding to that, I have 
just submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee they ought to have 
to require each State governor to say to the Secretary in their plan 
how they propose to ensure there are job opportunities or if there are 
work opportunities, training opportunities, are there day care 
opportunities, transportation. All of that means new resources. So if 
we are not making any differential in adding new resources to rural 
areas, we are putting the governors in the States throughout the United 
States, putting them in a decisive difficult fiscal position, and we 
should ask them how they propose to meet that obligation that they are 
given.
  So, in fact, in some rural areas the true unemployment is double. For 
example, the official unemployment rate of Indian reservations often 
are 20 and 30 percent. However, according to the Department of Labor, 
it is sometimes higher than that, and yet we are requiring that 
individuals in those communities will have the same rate for the very 
poor.
  Therefore, provisions of the legislation that are based on the 
official statistical data of unemployment is a false premise in order 
to give the governors the response to make a way. We need to find other 
ways of speaking to that.
  So there needs to be a recognition, Mr. Speaker, that child care that 
is so essential for mothers to leave their children and go to work, 
that is not available in rural areas. Unless we are willing to provide 
for education and training, transportation, day care, the rural 
community will not be able to respond to the citizens who need that 
help, and the current proposal that is before this House has nothing in 
there. In fact, I will be asking for unanimous consent that we add that 
provision to the bill on the floor.

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