On September 8, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources held a hearing on the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The subcommittee held a related hearing in March 2010 (see The Source, 3/15/10).
Kay Brown, director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security at the Government Accountability Office, said, “Generally, states are held accountable for ensuring that at least 50 percent of all families receiving TANF cash assistance participate in one or more of the twelve specified work activities for an average of 30 hours per week…Although fewer than 50 percent of all families receiving TANF cash assistance participated in work activities for the required number of hours both before and after DRA [Deficit Reduction Act (P.L. 109-171)], many states have been able to meet their work participation rate requirements because of various policy and funding options allowed in federal law and regulations. Specifically, factors that influenced states’ work participation rates included not only the number of families receiving TANF cash assistance who participated in work activities, but also decreases in the number of families receiving TANF cash assistance; state spending on TANF-related services beyond what is required; state policies that allow working families to continue receiving TANF cash assistance; and state policies that provide nonworking families cash assistance outside of the TANF program. Beyond families’ participation in the twelve work activities, the factor that states have commonly relied on to help them meet their required work participation rates is the caseload reduction credit. Specifically, decreases in the numbers of families receiving TANF cash assistance over a specified time period are accounted for in each state’s caseload reduction credit, which essentially then lowers the states’ required work participation rate from 50 percent.”
Gary Alexander, secretary of Public Welfare for Pennsylvania, noted “Despite the strengths with the TANF program, there is still much room for improvement. Perhaps the largest area for improvement is the placement and retention of people in the workforce. Further, federal rules and benchmarks need to be simplified to reflect real work and retention rather than a myriad of ancillary activities that usually do not add up to self-sufficiency. As in all federal programs, the rules are complicated and burdensome and the work participation rate – while important for federal reports – apparently fails to accurately measure actual, real-life work. As the name indicates, TANF was meant to be temporary assistance, but instead has become ‘a way-of-life’ for many. In Pennsylvania, for example, as of July 2011, there were almost 10,000 individuals and growing on TANF who been on for more than five years. In the past year, half of those who left TANF for a job returned to TANF within a year. Pennsylvania’s work participation rates for families receiving TANF show TANF is in need of cost-saving reforms because it has simply not performed as intended over the years. As of July 2011, Pennsylvania is only managing to put approximately four percent of its TANF population into jobs that provide at least 30 hours of work per week and only six percent of those on TANF work 24 hours a week. Indeed, from July 2010 to July 2011 there has been a thirty-one percent decrease in the percentage of TANF individuals who are working. Among individuals who leave TANF, approximately one out of three return after six months. The data clearly shows that Pennsylvania and the nation need a focus and mandate on employment in order to offer its participants a chance of moving out of poverty. An approach that encourages work first is the only way to ensure that truly needy individuals receive temporary assistance while transitioning to self-sufficiency.”
After explaining ways in which he believes the social safety net has increased, Douglas Besharov, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said, “I think that the failure to maintain TANF participation efforts is a mistake. First of all, the situation for entry-level jobs seems substantially less bleak than for higher paying jobs. Second, even though job searchers will have more difficulty than in the heyday of welfare reform, it is important that we not lose past progress in making welfare a work-oriented program. Third, as unemployment benefits expire, we should expect more people to accept lesser paying jobs, but we should also expect more families to seek TANF benefits.” Mr. Besharov continued, “As I said in my opening, even in this time of high unemployment, TANF and, actually, all major income-support and social welfare programs – including Unemployment Insurance (UI), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps), and disability programs (Social Security Disability Insurance [SSDI] and Supplemental Security Income [SSI]) – should encourage recipients of government assistance to stay connected to the labor force, by which I mean working, seeking work, or seriously increasing their job-related skills.” Mr. Besharov added, “To summarize, I think we face a growing separation of Americans from the labor force caused by: the growth of government assistance programs that allow more people to make do without a job, and a skills mismatch between the unemployed and available jobs…The Congress should help the states prepare for this development. That means helping states shape welfare-to-work programs that can accommodate these families that need different services than the (largely) poorly educated, single mothers with little work experience who were subject to welfare reform programs from the 1990s.”
LaDonna Pavetti, PhD, vice president for Family Income Support Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, “The available evidence indicates that low-income unemployed parents fare best – that is, they experience the most significant increases in employment and earnings – when states employ a ‘mixed’ approach. When such an approach is used, recipients are encouraged to pursue the path to employment that will lead them to the best outcomes. For some, this means waiting for a more stable job to come along instead of taking the very first job they find. For others, it means participating in an education or training program that will help them gain the knowledge and skills to qualify for jobs that pay more adequate wages. And for those with limited work experience, it may well mean taking the first job they can get so they can establish a foothold in the labor market. Recipients with significant barriers to employment may need to stabilize their lives by seeking mental health, substance abuse or medical treatment before they can sustain full-time employment. Although families come to TANF with different needs and problems, few states have implemented a mixed approach or develop individualized plans based on an individual family’s needs and circumstances. Instead, most states treat all recipients the same. They do so in hopes of maximizing participation in the narrowly-defined set of work activities that will allow recipients to be counted as meeting the work participation rate standard… The work participation rate only counts participation in 12 specified categories of activities, and then only when participation is for a substantial number of hours, generally 30 hours per week (20 hours for single parents of young children)…A state gets no credit toward the work rate for any hours of participation that are less than the required number of hours, or for participation in activities that may fall outside of the restrictions on counting certain activities. As a result, many states do not report, and in some cases, their systems may not track, significant work activity participation taking place below these thresholds. Furthermore, many of the activities that today’s TANF recipients often need to be prepared for work do not count toward the work rate.”
Scott Wetzler, PhD, vice chair and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Services at Montefiore Medical Center, also testified.
