On September 20, the House approved, 250-164, a resolution (H.J. Res. 118) disapproving of the July 12 rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding work requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The House Education and the Workforce and Ways and Means Committees approved the resolution on September 13 (see The Source, 9/14/12).
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (P.L. 104-193), which established the TANF program, requires that adults in 50 percent of all families and 90 percent of two-parent families that receive TANF benefits be engaged in work or work-related activity, including job training programs. The HHS rule would grant the secretary of HHS the authority to waive section 402 of the Social Security Act (42 USC 1315) to allow states to “test alternative and innovative employment outcomes for needy families.” The administration noted that such a waiver would be approved only if states “move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work compared with the state’s past performance.”
According to the House Ways and Means Committee report, the HHS rule would “have the effect of allowing states to opt out of TANF work requirements for the first time since welfare reform’s passage in 1996. This is despite the fact that current TANF law allows state waivers only related to state plan reporting requirements (which are a paperwork requirement authorized in section 402 of the Social Security Act) and does not provide authority for the administration to grant waivers related to the critical TANF work requirements in section 407 of the Social Security Act.” The report added, “After 16 years of welfare policy and practice to the contrary, the Obama Administration in July 2012 announced that for the first time in the history of the TANF program the agency now claimed to have authority to waive work requirements for welfare recipients. Importantly, the administration’s July 12 rule was not the result of any new legislation passed by Congress, nor connected to any TANF proposal submitted in a prior administration budget document. No prior HHS secretary, Republican or Democrat, has ever concluded that he or she had the authority to [waive] the TANF work requirements.”
“The rhetoric behind H.J. Res. 118 is short on facts,” according to the Minority Views in the House Education and the Workforce Committee report. “The fact is the administration’s waiver proposal allows state-driven innovation to improve employment outcomes. The fact is the waiver proposal clearly states: ‘HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF.’ The fact is the waiver proposal is explicitly designed ‘to challenge states to engage in a new round of innovation that seeks to find more effective mechanisms for helping families succeed in employment’ and requires evaluations and performance targets ‘that ensure an immediate focus on measurable outcomes.’ The fact is the secretary of HHS has even further clarified that waiver applications must show how a state’s proposed changes would increase employment of TANF recipients by at least 20 percent. The fact is the legal authority for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue these waivers is clear.
