Truth-Telling About Welfare: As Senate Votes to Temporarily Extend TANF, Expert Panel Advises Lawmakers to Address Challenges that Face Low-Income Women and Children

by Rachel Weisshaar, NOW Communications Intern

On June 22, the Senate voted to temporarily extend the 1996 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill for the seventh time, in effect delaying meaningful Congressional debate on welfare reform for yet another three months.

Two days later, women's rights, welfare advocates and Congressional staff members filled a hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building for a briefing sponsored by the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) entitled"Turning Poverty Into Possibilities: A New Look At Welfare Reform." The National Organization for Women organized the panel presentations for the event. Panelists reviewed some of the major problems with the current TANF law that have been identified in recent years and how a revised bill might remedy these deficiencies.

Gwendolyn Mink, Ph.D, a professor of women's studies and government at Smith College and an author of several books on welfare policy, began her remarks on TANF reauthorization and reform by reminding the attendees that TANF was due for reauthorization in Sept. 2002, but has since been extended (mostly in three-month increments) seven times. Women's rights and welfare advocacy groups dislike pressing for a multi-year extension of the 1996 TANF bill, Dr. Mink explained, but most have decided that the two alternative bills—one from the House, one from the Senate—would penalize women to a greater extent than the current act does. These bills would privatize the social costs of poverty—for example, by raising weekly and yearly work requirements to levels that many mothers cannot fulfill.

Consequently, many women's rights and welfare advocates are requesting that Congress grant TANF a multi-year extension. As Representatives Diane Watson (D-Calif.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) expressed in a June 22 open letter to all members of Congress, "we fear that the current stop-gap measure [of TANF extensions], offered at a three-month interval, is threatening states' ability to provide long-term funding and programmatic certainty."

The other three panelists discussed some of the problems with pending TANF reauthorization legislation, and, based on their research, offered remedies for these deficiencies for whenever Congress finally decides to tackle welfare reform.

Vicky Lovell, Ph.D, Study Director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), highlighted three main findings of her most recent research. In a June 2003 report entitled, "40-Hour Work Proposal Significantly Raises Mothers' Employment Standard," Dr. Lowell found that a 40-hour-a-week, year-round work requirement, which Congress is considering making a requirement for TANF recipients, would be significantly higher than the current level of mothers' employment activity. Although most mothers do work for pay, half of those are employed either part-time or part of the year, or both.

Analysts have suggested that low-income mothers cannot afford the child care they would need in order to work full-time, as well as that many low-wage jobs available to women with few job-related skills are available either as part-time or part-year opportunities, or both. In addition, Dr. Lovell pointed out that many jobs that low-income women are able to get are structured in such a way that they are almost impossible to hold on a permanent basis. These low-wage jobs often lack health benefits, paid sick leave, or a living wage that pays enough to keep a woman financially self-sufficient. Given that employment is not steady for low-income people and that most low-income mothers are unable to work for pay full-time and full-year, it would be illogical and irresponsible for lawmakers to demand that mothers who are TANF recipients nearly double their current average level of paid work.

Dr. Lovell also noted the special difficulties that women with disabilities face. They are more likely to have a lower family income, a lower level of education, a child with a disability, and are more likely to be single. Lawmakers need to take all of these factors into consideration in order to effectively revise TANF.

Lisalyn Jacobs, Esq., Vice President for Government Relations at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund) focused her remarks on the expanded marriage promotion initiative that George W. Bush has proposed adding to TANF. Ms. Jacobs and other women's rights and welfare advocates find several critical flaws with this program. Foremost, it is fiscally irresponsible to divert already-tight funds from TANF supports that have been proven effective for the purpose of financing an unproven social experiment (there is no evidence that marriage helps lift people out of poverty). In the House and Senate plans, at least $1.4 billion would be spent on untested marriage promotion plans over the next five years.

Furthermore, many people resent governmental intrusion into the fundamental and private institution of marriage, which the Supreme Court has said exists in a zone of privacy in which the federal government should not intrude. In addition, 60% of female TANF recipients are the victim of domestic violence at some point during their life; pushing these at-risk women into marriage as a way to get them out of poverty and off welfare further endangers their already-precarious situation. Finally, encouraging couples to get married brings with it the very real possibility of stigmatizing and encouraging discrimination against single parents and unmarried couples.

Ms. Jacobs argued that child care subsidies, health care, job training, education, and jobs that pay a living wage are support services that are proven to help get and keep people off welfare. Women's rights organizations advocate programs that help women develop the life skills they need in order to become independent are an important part of the picture as well. The fundamental criticism of government-supported marriage promotion is that to encourage women to become economically dependent on men will not get or keep anyone off welfare.

Avis Jones DeWeever, Ph.D, Study Director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, presented research from studies conducted by the IWPR that highlighted some of the problems with the current TANF bill for single-parent families. For instance, between 1996 and 2000, work participation of single-parent families in extreme poverty increased by 50%, yet income for these families decreased by 9%. Despite the jobs that workers in these families acquired, this additional income still could not compensate for the huge drop in cash assistance from government programs that these families experienced between 1996 and 2000. In addition, these types of families also lost access to health care during the same time period; the proportion of extremely poor children (family income is below 50% of the poverty line) without health insurance increased from 15% to 25%.

Whereas before 1996 welfare reform, younger children were more likely than their school-age counterparts to receive monetary assistance, this situation reversed under the 1996 TANF bill. Coverage for older children in extreme poverty fell from 57% to 33% between 1996 and 2000, at the same time as coverage for younger children in extreme poverty fell from 61% to 26%. Now, the youngest and poorest children (those who are less than six years old and in extreme poverty) are less likely than older children to receive TANF assistance.

Furthermore, between 1996 and 2000, the proportion of children in single-parent families who received no food stamps increased from 36% to 47% for quite poor children (family income is between 50% and 100% of the poverty line) and from 27% to 37% for extremely poor children. By 2000, the percentage of children living in extreme poverty and not receiving food stamps had increased by 32% for school-aged children and by a staggering 44% for young children.

Dr. DeWeever suggested that in order to start reversing these alarming trends, we need to make sure that people have access to services for which they are eligible-such as health care and food stamps. The long-term goal, of course, is to create jobs that pay a living wage-one that can actually support people and keep them off welfare.

The panelists conveyed the overall message that welfare reform is needed urgently, and that if implemented, several key improvements could substantially benefit low-income women, children, and mothers. If Congress will not seriously take up the issue of welfare reform, then they should grant a multi-year extension of the current TANF bill, which will at least do no harm to low-income families.

• how much paid work mothers, especially mothers of young children, can and do perform in reality, considering the shortage of quality child care
• the temporary nature of low-wage jobs, and the specific challenges of disabled women,
• the particular difficulties that children in single-parent families face under the current TANF bill,
• and the importance of funding programs that are proven to get and keep people out of poverty instead of ones that are founded on vague notions of promoting "family values" in the United States.

Only when they take into account the extensive research that has been conducted on families that have received TANF assistance over the last eight years can lawmakers carefully construct legislation that can remedy some of the most egregious shortcomings of current welfare policy in this nation. So far they have failed to do so.