TANF should be a work-based safety net that strengthens families. The history of the past fourteen years shows the way to improving it for the future. It would be more successful in promoting work if it analyzed the individual needs and challenges of recipients and provided tailored education, training, support services, and other assistance to help people get and keep jobs. It would be more successful as a safety net if benefits were increased and if people in need could succeed in greater numbers in gaining access to the program

Edelman, Peter B.

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TANF and Low-Income Family Support: Hearing Before the H. Subcomm. on Income Security and Family Support of the H. Comm. on Ways and Means, 111th Cong., Mar. 11, 2010 (Statement of Professor Peter B. Edelman, Geo. U. L. Center)

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Georgetown University Law CenterScholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW2010TANF and Low-Income Family Support: HearingBefore the H. Subcomm. on Income Security andFamily Support of the H. Comm. on Ways andMeans, 111th Cong., Mar. 11, 2010 (Statement ofProfessor Peter B. Edelman, Geo. U. L. Center)Peter B. EdelmanGeorgetown University Law Center, edelman@law.georgetown.eduThis paper can be downloaded free of charge from:http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cong/106This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author.Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/congPart of the Social Welfare Law Commons1Testimony of Peter Edelman. Professor of Law, Georgetown Law CenterSubcommittee on Income Security and Family SupportCommittee on Ways and MeansU.S. House of RepresentativesMarch 11, 2010Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee:Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.  This is an important hearing and I thank you forconvening it.We are battling the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Millions of people areout of work.  Poverty is on the rise.  Yet Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) –cash assistance that goes primarily to female-headed families with children – is playing only abit part in ameliorating the impact of the recession.  The needle on welfare receipt has barelymoved and as of last September was still just a little over 4 million recipients, up by about 6percent since the beginning of the recession.  By contrast, the SNAP program – food stamps – isup by about 30 percent since the recession began and now helps some 37 million people.  Thenumber of new SNAP recipients is about 35 times the number of new welfare recipients.Why?  What accounts for this disparity?  What does it tell us about how we should improve theTANF program to be more relevant in the immediate future and the longer term?  TANF’sweakness as a countercyclical policy reveals areas in which it should be strengthened for goodtimes as well as bad.TANF should be a work-based safety net that strengthens families.  It should serve two purposes:one, to help adult recipients find and keep jobs that (coupled with other policies like the EarnedIncome Tax Credit) get them out of poverty; and two, to be a safety net for families who are outof work (or have very low-wage work) and need cash help to get along.  These two purposes are somewhat in tension with one another, especially in good times, but bothare vital.  The challenge as we move toward reauthorization is to adjust the policy so that itfunctions well in fulfilling both purposes.A key underlying premise of the 1996 law – correct in my view, then and now – was that the oldwelfare framework had fallen short in getting adult recipients off the rolls and into jobs, andconsequently had allowed too many people to stay on the rolls for long periods of time.  Aid toFamilies with Dependent Children had 14.3 million recipients by 1994, which was too many inmy view.  And too many of these 14.3 million – about 5 million adults – were long-termrecipients who could and should have succeeded in getting and keeping a job.  We now have almost fourteen years of experience with TANF.  We can see what has happened. There are issues both about how successful TANF has been in helping people succeed in the jobmarket and about how well it has functioned as a safety net.  2As to the job market there are two categories of questions: one, whether TANF has facilitated thekind of education and training that would enable recipients to make full use of their potential;and two, whether TANF has provided recipients who face multiple barriers to success with thewherewithal to surmount those barriers.  As to the safety net, the extraordinary decline in the number of recipients raises substantialquestions, especially in light of the failure of so many states to use the program to respond to theundeniable recession-related needs of people (and in contrast to the help that SNAP has been formillions of people).  I hope that we can look at the facts and come to some agreements about changes in the law thatwill improve the program.There are some national facts and, more important, some state-by-state facts.  TANF is a blockgrant (not to mention that AFDC was also a program that allowed for great variance among thestates, especially regarding benefit levels), so states can vary widely in their programs.  A fewstates have used TANF to work with recipients on an individualized basis, helping in tailoredways as to both jobs and income support   More are distinctive in a positive way for one or a fewaspects of their program, whether it be transitional jobs or child care or something else.  Quite afew others are notable for their single-minded focus on trimming the rolls.  We can see and learnfrom the array of variations.  Speaking nationally, cash help for families with children has become an ever-smaller piece of thepanoply of programs for low-income people, and the fraction of poor children reached by TANFhas become steadily smaller as time has passed.  Specifically, it has shrunk from reaching almosttwo-thirds of poor children to a point where less than a third of poor children live in families thatreceive TANF.  In some states TANF has virtually disappeared.  A number of states have cuttheir rolls by 90 percent from the time when welfare rolls were at their peak in 1994.It will not do to say flatly, without a closer look, that this degree of caseload reduction is in itselfthe proof that welfare reform is working.  What one should want to know, of course, is why therolls shrank so much, what actually happened to the people who left the rolls, and what happenedto those who could not obtain assistance in the first place.  We actually know quite a lot aboutthese issues.  States have utilized two major strategies to reduce their rolls so much.  One is to deny peopleaccess to the rolls when they come in to apply.  An analysis by the Urban Institute showed that42 states have rules that discourage enrollment, such as requiring an extensive job search evenwhen, as now, there are no jobs to be found.  The other is to make use of strong sanctioningpolicies that remove people from the rolls, temporarily and sometimes permanently, forsometimes minor infractions of various rules governing recipients.  Research by Urban Institute scholars over the years provides important information.  It reveals,first, that about three out of five people leaving welfare found jobs, and about half of those did3not escape poverty.  These facts are informative in themselves, but even more important is whathappened to the two in five recent leavers who did not find work.  As of 2002, about half ofthem, or about one out of five leavers overall, were disconnected – had no job and also did nothave a working spouse and did not obtain disability benefits.  A study by the CongressionalResearch Service found that 34 percent of poor single mothers were neither working norreceiving TANF benefits, up from 12 percent in 1991.  Many of these in the increased numberwere undoubtedly people who had applied for welfare and were turned away.  These fractions reflect large numbers.  The welfare rolls shrank from more than 14 millionpeople in 1994 to under 4 million in 2007, and have risen only slightly since.  A finding that oneout of five recent leavers is disconnected translates into a substantial number of people.  TheCRS figure represents an even larger number.It is probably not surprising, therefore, to find that over the past decade there has been a strikingincrease in extreme poverty – having an income of less than half the poverty line, or less than$9100 for a family of three (in 2009).  The number in extreme poverty went from 12.6 millionpeople in 2000 to 17.1 million in 2008.  As early in the decade as 2002 one in three recentwelfare leavers had an income below half the poverty level, and this did not include theincidence of extreme poverty among those who were denied help.  Recent research about SNAPis congruent.  Currently about six million people receive only food stamps and have no othersource of income.  Food stamps by themselves offer an income that is about 30 percent of thepoverty line.  The shrinking of welfare must surely be a key factor in these disturbing trendsabout extreme poverty.Nor has the recession increased access to welfare in the typical state.  In many states there wasno change in the policies that had reduced the rolls so substantially.  Caseloads actually fell in 20states in 2008.  Fourteen of 24 states that responded to an Urban Institute survey said they hadnot changed any of their TANF policies or practices in response to higher unemployment.   If those who have left the rolls and those who never get on have suffered serious consequences,in most states those who do get on the rolls receive little help.  Thirty states pay a maximumbenefit that is less than 30 percent of the poverty.  Mississippi, at 9 percent of the poverty line, isthe most parsimonious.  Nationwide there has been no increase in federal funding since the 1996 law was enacted, so thevalue of that funding has eroded substantially over the past 14 years.  There were greatdisparities between the states under the old AFDC program.  These have persisted, and thepurchasing power of the benefits has declined with the stagnation in federal funding.  Turning to the future, we need to think about TANF as one piece of a larger jobs and incomestrategy for low-income people.  Its work promotion purpose needs to be pursued in tandem withthe full menu of policies we have in that area, linked to education and training programs that leadto the jobs of the 21st century.  Its income support purpose needs to be seen as a part of aframework that also includes unemployment insurance, SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit,4the Child Tax Credit, and SSI.  There has been a tendency, both substantively and politically, toview TANF recipients in isolation.  This needs to change.In light of all of the foregoing, what is the agenda for TANF reauthorization?1. The TANF Emergency Fund.  An immediate concern is to extend the TANF Emergency Fundenacted in the Recovery Act.  This is essential to forestall what otherwise might be a need insome states to cut benefits, and to build on the subsidized job programs that have been anencouraging step in a number of states in recent months.  TANF itself should be reframed tomake it more automatically responsive to future economic downturns.  2. Funding.  The federal contribution to TANF must be increased.  The flat funding of theprogram for 14 years has been demonstrably difficult to deal with and gets in the way of makingthe program more adequate for people who have genuine needs.  For the future, funding shouldbe adjusted annually to reflect increases in the cost of living.  Congress should create a specialProgram Innovation Fund, including evaluation funds, to develop new knowledge on how best toassure seamless interaction between the work promotion and income support functions of TANF.3. A Performance Measure Approach to Work Promotion.  Congress should adopt performancemeasures for TANF.  Caseload reduction should be a means to an end.  The aims should bestable and sustainable employment and reduction of poverty, and performance measures shouldbe adopted to encourage pursuit of those aims.  The current percentage requirements for workparticipation by people now on the rolls, including the rigid limits on education and training, arein conflict with the policy that underlies the basic block-grant structure.  A new set ofperformance measures that focuses on employment outcomes and other measures of family well-being would afford states the flexibility they should have to design their own strategies to helppeople get education and training and find jobs.  Federal policy should incentivize states todevelop plans that evaluate people on an individual basis and respond to their individualsituations.  Congress should create a specially targeted initiative to help states developtransitional employment programs for adults who need more than routine job search help.  4.  Reweaving the Safety Net.  The reauthorization should include an effort to reweave the safetynet function, the damage to which has been so vividly demonstrated in the current recession. Some of this can be accomplished through the messages sent to the states from Washington.  Aconsiderable number of states have time limits shorter than five years, are not using the 20%exception after the five years, and do not use the child-only exemption from time limits.   Inaddition, standards for access to benefits and sanctioning rules should be developed to set outerlimits on policies in those states that have essentially abolished welfare as a meaningful part ofthe social safety net.  The law should encourage states to use TANF as an income supplement forvery low-wage workers and provide that such a use of TANF benefits does not count against thetime limits.  And it should provide exceptions to time limits and work requirements for recipientswho are caring for chronically ill children or aged and infirm relatives, and for recipients in highschool or college or another approved postsecondary or job training program.  (Overall, the totalnumber of people affected by time limits grows with the length of time the 1996 law has been in5effect.)  HHS should collect and report data that indicate how effective states’ TANF programsare as safety nets, especially with regard to children and families in deep poverty.  5. Legal Immigrants.   Legal immigrants should be eligible for TANF and other means-testedbenefits without a five-year wait, and the matter of eligibility should not be left to state option.6. Child Support Passthrough.   States collecting child support on behalf of TANF recipientsshould be required to pass those funds along to the children for whose benefit the money hasbeen paid.  I want to close where I began.  TANF should be a work-based safety net that strengthensfamilies.  The history of the past fourteen years shows the way to improving it for the future.  Itwould be more successful in promoting work if it analyzed the individual needs and challengesof recipients and provided tailored education, training, support services, and other assistance tohelp people get and keep jobs.  It would be more successful as a safety net if benefits wereincreased and if people in need could succeed in greater numbers in gaining access to theprogram.Thank you for the opportunity to offer these remarks today. 

https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&amp;context=cong

TANF and Low-Income Family Support: Hearing Before the H. Subcomm. on Income Security and Family Support of the H. Comm. on Ways and Means, 111th Cong., Mar. 11, 2010 (Statement of Professor Peter B. Edelman, Geo. U. L. Center)

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