[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992-1993, Book II)]
[August 14, 1992]
[Pages 1356-1358]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



White House Fact Sheet: The President's Welfare Reform Legislation
August 14, 1992

    The President has transmitted to the Congress by letters to the 
President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House four legislative 
proposals to implement those parts of his welfare reform strategy 
requiring legislative changes. The President announced his plans for 
further welfare reform on July 31, 1992, in Riverside, CA.
    The legislative proposals sent to the Congress today are the:
    ``Welfare Employment and Flexibility Amendments of 1992'' 
            that would amend the Aid to Families with Dependent Children 
            (AFDC) statute;
    ``Food Stamp Employment and Flexibility Amendments of 
            1992,'' making similar changes to the Food Stamp Act;
    ``Housing Assistance Innovation Act of 1992'' that would 
            allow innovation in public and assisted housing programs on 
            a basis similar to other welfare programs; and
    ``Community Opportunity Pilot Project Act of 1992'' that 
            would authorize selection of five communities to redesign 
            the delivery of Federal assistance to create increased 
            opportunity in those communities.

The Problem

    Flexibility. Federal public assistance programs are structured in 
fixed, categorical ways. This limits the ability of the State and local 
agencies administering Federal funds to meet local needs and conditions.
    State and local officials seeking a greater role for work in welfare 
programs face unnecessary obstacles in implementing work-

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fare with significant work requirements. Current law limits the number 
of hours each month that a recipient can be required to ``work off'' to 
the number of hours that results from dividing the amount of the AFDC 
benefit by the minimum wage ($4.25 nationally). A family household of 
$170 per month in AFDC would be limited to 10 hours per week. That 
family, however, may receive food stamps worth $210 per month and 
Medicaid that provides insurance coverage worth $300 per month, bringing 
the total value of assistance to $680 per month.
    Also, Federal law limits the positions that can be used in workfare 
programs. Vacant positions in public or nonprofit agencies cannot be 
given to workfare participants. A public or nonprofit agency must create 
new positions to take on someone with a workfare obligation, either 
increasing the work done or dividing work among more workers.
    Scope of Innovation. Since the President's State of the Union 
Address, in which he pledged Federal cooperation with State efforts to 
reform welfare programs through expeditious consideration of requests 
for waivers of Federal law or regulations, six waivers have been granted 
to five States. All relate to AFDC and Medicaid program changes. The 
degree of flexibility currently available in the AFDC and Medicaid 
programs does not exist for the food stamp, rental assistance, or public 
housing programs.

The President's Principles

    The President's fundamental goal for welfare reform is to create a 
system that will enable welfare recipients to leave the system at the 
earliest possible time, as economically self-sufficient and responsible 
participants in their community.

The President's Legislative Proposals

    The President's four legislative proposals to promote work, personal 
responsibility, and flexibility sent to the Congress today are:

1. ``Welfare Employment and Flexibility Amendments of 1992''
    The legislation would:
    Relax restrictions on the placement of workfare participants 
            in jobs. For example, a vacant real job could be assigned to 
            a workfare participant; it
            would not be necessary to create a
            new position or find new work to be done;
    Allow States to determine maximum workfare obligations by 
            aggregating
            the value of AFDC payments, food
            stamps, Federal housing assistance, and
            average Medicaid costs, up to a maximum of 40 hours per 
            week. Current law allows only for inclusion of AFDC
            payments;
    Emphasize job search in welfare-to-work programs operating 
            under the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) training 
            program by removing limits on the period a person can 
            continue to be asked to look for a job;
    Allow States to distribute AFDC benefits after work and 
            training assignments have been completed; and
    Require that failure to provide promptly all information 
            necessary to deter- 
            mine the father of a child would
            result in a partial loss of AFDC bene-
            fits for uncooperative mothers.
            AFDC payments are made because a parent, usually the father, 
            is absent. The requirement in current law that a mother 
            cooperate in identifying the father of her child, enforced 
            by the potential for losing part of the welfare check, would 
            be expanded to include all information necessary to 
            determine who the father is.

2. ``Food Stamp Employment and Flexibility Amendments of 1992''
    The legislation would:
    Apply provisions in the ``Welfare Employment and Flexibility 
            Amendments of 1992'' that remove limitations on work 
            requirements to the food stamp program; and
    Expand waiver authority in the Food Stamp Act to make it 
            comparable to that available for AFDC.

3. ``Housing Assistance Innovation Act of 1992''
    The legislation would:
    Provide waiver authority for public

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            housing agencies and resident management corporations so 
            they could try new approaches to self-sufficiency and 
            resident empowerment;
    Allow waivers of Davis-Bacon wage requirements for residents 
            of public housing or subsidized housing and the homeless for 
            projects that improve the housing and community in which 
            they live and that increase their ability to get jobs; and
    Allow eviction of convicted felons from public housing 
            without an administrative hearing where State eviction 
            processes contain similar due process protections.

4. ``Community Opportunity Pilot Project Act of 1992''
    The legislation would:
    Create broad authority to waive program rules that govern 
            the use of Federal funds to allow break-the-mold approaches 
            to creating opportunity and promoting self-sufficiency;
    Provide authority to approve projects in five communities 
            that would be selected after a nationwide competition;
    Allow proposals to come from States, local governments, and 
            nonprofit organizations; and
    Evaluate the projects to determine their effect and the 
            applicability of the projects' findings.
        --For example, ideas that emerge from the effort to rebuild 
            south central Los Angeles and the Atlanta Project could be 
            implemented, even if they are not consistent with the rules 
            that currently govern Federal funds flowing to those areas.
        --A community could take Federal transportation, community 
            development, food stamp, job training, and drug abuse 
            treatment funds and devise a multiyear project for a group 
            of youth that would provide them with drug treatment, 
            transportation to jobs outside the community, and training 
            for jobs the project would create in the home community. 
            Compared to current law:
            The project and all its uses of several categorical funding 
            programs for different purposes could be approved; and
            All necessary waivers could be granted in a single action, 
            without application to multiple agencies.