March
2005
TANF Extended Through June
Before leaving for its spring recess, Congress passed its ninth extension of the TANF program, which
keeps current law in effect until June 31st. However, both the House and Senate have moved forward with full reauthorization
bills and there remains a push to reauthorize TANF this year.
House
and Senate Committee Action on TANF
In early
March, committees in both the House and Senate took up legislation to reauthorize TANF. On March 9th, the Senate
Finance Committee approved bipartisan compromise reauthorization legislation, S. 667, modeled on last year’s PRIDE legislation
with some improvements and on March 15th the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources endorsed H.R. 240, the Personal Responsibility,
Work, and Family Promotion Act, which for the most part mirrors previous House bills. The two bills continue to mark very
different approaches to the program - the House version closely tracking the Administration’s proposals, emphasizing
stricter work requirements and sanction policies with little new investment, and the Senate version reflecting a hard won
compromise that requires more work of TANF recipients, but also provides more options for fulfilling those requirements and
more money for child care and other work supports. The following is a brief summary
of key provisions:
Senate: The Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone
(PRIDE) Act, S. 667
Work
Requirements – Increases required work hours to
24 hours per week for single parents with a child under age six, 34 for single parents with a child over age six, and modifies
work requirements for two-parent families. States will receive partial credit for adults working fewer than the required hours
and limited extra credit for those working over 34. Gradually increases work participation rate from the current 50% to 70%
by 2010. States will not be penalized for failing to meet higher annual participation
rates so long as their rates increase by 5 percentage points each year.
Work
Activities – Allows more activities to count toward
the work requirement. In addition to paid or unpaid employment, job search and
limited time (12 months, as in current law) in vocational training, the bill allows up to 6 months out of every 24 for literacy
training and rehabilitation services for substance abuse and people with disabilities. It also includes a state option to
extend rehab services beyond 6 months to overcome barriers to employment. Postsecondary
education may count for 3 months out of every 24 for all recipients, but PRIDE allows a limited number (10% of the caseload)
to participate in postsecondary education for a longer period – based on the Parents as Scholars program in Maine.
Child
Care – Includes $6 billion in additional mandatory
child care funding over the next five years. This amount will cover the costs of increased work requirements and help ensure
that current service levels are maintained. The cost of this increase was offset by some modifications to the Earned Income
Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, including one controversial provision that could prevent certain low-income families with
one or more family members who are immigrants from claiming the EITC. Several
senators have suggested that this provision should be changed before the bill is passed by the Senate. (More information from the National Immigration Law Center)
Marriage
Promotion and Fatherhood Initiatives – Includes
$1 billion over five years for marriage promotion activities and $100 million over five years to encourage responsible fatherhood.
Provisions stipulate that participation in these activities is voluntary and require safeguards for domestic violence.
Transitional
Medicaid Assistance – Allows families leaving
TANF to be eligible for continuing Medicaid for 12 months with a state option to continue coverage for an additional year.
Child
support improvements - Allows more child support dollars
to go to families rather than being retained by government and provides additional enforcement tools.
Social
Services Block Grant – Increases funding by $1
billion over 5 years.
Waiver
Authority – Does not extend current state waivers,
but does include a 10-state demonstration project to “enhance or to provide for improved program integration coordination
and delivery of public assistance” among TANF, SSBG, Child Development Block Grant (mandatory) programs.
House: Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act, H.R. 240
Work
Requirements – Increases required work hours to
40 for ALL families. Gradually increases work participation rate from the current 50% to 70% by 2010.
Work
Activities – Beyond the first 3-4 months of TANF
participation, the only countable work activities are unsubsidized or subsidized work, or unpaid work experience or community
service.
Child
Care – Includes only $1 billion increase in mandatory
child care funding over 5 years. This amount does not meet the costs of the stricter work requirements imposed by the legislation
and will cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of child care slots over the next 5 years.
Marriage
Promotion and Fatherhood Initiatives – Roughly
the same as the Senate proposal, but without adequate provisions related to domestic violence and voluntary participation.
Waiver
Authority – Does not extend current state waivers,
but includes the problematic “superwaiver” (now called “state flex”) proposal that would give sweeping
new authority to the Executive Branch to override, at the request of a state governor, almost any federal law or rule governing
a long list of low-income programs – Public Housing, Food Stamps, homeless assistance programs under the McKinney-Vento
Act, WIA programs, and several others.
Drug-Testing – Includes a new provision adopted by amendment in the Human Resources
Subcommittee that would require drug-tests for TANF recipients suspected of illegal drug use. Positive drug tests would result
in changes to self-sufficiency plans (detailing individual work activities), suspension of benefits, required follow-up testing,
and the eventual termination of TANF benefits for a three year period if drug use continues.
While states would supposedly be given flexibility in how to address drug abuse, the work requirements in H.R. 240
only allow for three months of substance abuse treatment to count as a work activity. In addition, states refusing to comply
with the new requirement would be subject to a reduction in grant money, to be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services.
Analysis
Since
2001, employment of single mothers has declined, fewer families are leaving TANF with jobs – much less well-paying jobs
with benefits – and child poverty is on the rise. Moreover, for
whatever reasons, the number of families without work or welfare is at its highest level ever. A more restrictive and prescriptive
TANF program will do little to help those most in need of assistance.
The
Senate TANF bill continues to represent a much better alternative than the House legislation, though the National
Advocacy Center believes that further improvements are still needed. Neither bill addresses the restoration of benefits to lawfully present immigrants or the need for longer-term
vocational education and job training for many recipients, and both mandate stricter work requirements, impervious to the
reality of the low-wage workforce and the difficulty TANF recipients encounter in trying to find decent jobs.
The
House bill still has to be approved by the full Committee on Ways and Means and then voted on by the full House. Given the
procedures of the House, few changes to H.R. 240 are likely. In the Senate, however,
many amendments will be offered when the PRIDE Act comes to the floor – ICHIA (to restore healthcare benefits to lawfully
present immigrant children and pregnant women), an amendment to expand allowable vocational education and training to 24 months,
one to allow rehab services to count as work for longer than 6 months, and an amendment to change the offset for the new child
care funding – that can further improve the bill. Once both chambers pass
bills, differences between the two will have to be worked out during a conference and the danger remains that many of the
more punitive House provisions will prevail.
For
previous TANF updates from the National Advocacy Center click here.
For More Information:
Coalition
on Human Needs - TANF Page
Center
for Law and Social Policy - Welfare Policy
