Text of January 25, 2003 email to Becky Shipp (formerly Senator Hatch's staffer on welfare reform reauthorization; now staff to the Senate Finance Committee) and Jace Johnson (Senator Hatch's new staffer on welfare reform reauthorization) as a follow-up to issues discussed in a December 10, 2002 meeting with Becky. UREAP representatives at that meeting were Dee Rowland, Mary Beth Vogel-Ferguson, Bill Walsh, Sheila Walsh-McDonald, and Shirley Weathers.


Dear Becky and Jace,
 
Becky, thank you so much for the time in SLC last month. It was so helpful for us to hear your information, as we plan to resume UREAP activities for 2003. We were very glad to learn of Senator Hatch's plans and interests in key aspects of welfare reform reauthorization legislation that is crafted by the Senate Finance Committee. You described Senator Hatch's commitment to helping families "get somewhere" as opposed to simply "getting off welfare." We appreciate that sentiment enormously--it most definitely corresponds with our goals. Jace, it was good to meet you by phone and we look forward to working with you in the months ahead. Please call on us at any time if you have questions or need information. We will happy to do the best we can to help.
 
We wish to follow up on a few items pertaining to the WORK Act that we discussed in our December meeting with Becky.
 
First, we want to reiterate our support for two of Senator Hatch's priorities: Universal Engagement and Child Well-being. They are definitely related and he has accomplished that link effectively in the WORK Act. Univeral engagement, as expressed by the Senator, is entirely consistent with the way Utah has operated since 1993. Despite the administrative challenges to states that are not already doing this, we are convinced that a process for all families of early engagement, effective assessment of parent and family circumstances, appropriate activities, and provision of necessary services form an essential foundation if time spent on welfare before lifetime limits run out is to be effectively utilized for the good of those families. Set down in a document such as an IRP, the client and employment counselor have a blueprint of mutual responsibility for the future. Senator Hatch's approach goes an important step beyond Utah's past and current policies by requiring a more indepth assessment whereby both family barriers and the status of child well-being are investigated, described, and incorporated into the package of activities and services for the family described in the IRP.
 
Closely related, we hope also to see review of the IRP built in as a required step before a family is sanctioned. As you know, in Utah, a "conciliation process" is spelled out in a detailed policy as a required precursor to sanction. When there is a participation problem, resumption of participation is the goal, but discovering the reasons and considering solutions is often a challenge for employment counselors. We can foresee the value of bringing in Senator Hatch's comprehensive IRP as a tool to facilitate negotations and understanding. This should go along way to effect a return to participation and help avoid inappropriate sanctions.
 
Second, since our meeting, we have put some serious thought into the major issues you identified as portending debate. We understand that, on one hand, some of the 2002 WORK Act will be challenged and some provisions we favor may not survive. It also appears that, on the other hand, there is also an opportunity to garner greater support for some elements and to solve some problems with the WORK Act. What we hope to do here is continue the dialogue and convey a greater sense of UREAP's views on these sticking points.
 
A) Exemptions from work requirements. We understand that some say the WORK Act exempted "too many people from work requirements." From Utah's experience with Universal Engagement, there are several other essential companion components that need to work together to strengthen chances that families will "get somewhere." Some of these components may be among those that face challenge. Key among those are provisions that allow--encourage and certainly not discourage--states to develop IRPs that maximize the chances that each respective family will be able to become employed, stable, and self-sufficient. If part of what is meant by excessive exemptions from the work requirement is that some are exempted from work (per se) by adding to the list of "countable activities," we absolutely do not believe that the answer is to reduce the WORK Act's broader approach.
 
In fact, we believe what will thwart the promising aspects of Universal Engagement--and may render it far less meaningful and useful--are provisions that discourage states from allowing client IRPs to include activities that will help families become employable. We know that serious employment barriers exist, especially for longer term clients. Many of them can succeed with appropriate work-preparation interventions, as has occurred in Utah where employment plans have been tailored to individual clients. We see evidence of that success, as well as of the negative consequences for families who don't get that help in the SRI study Mary Beth Vogel-Ferguson discussed at our meeting. (Jace, we would like to ensure that you are in touch with Mary Beth and become familiar with the three important studies of long-term recipients in which she has been involved.) Here is a link to the SRI site where you can find the most recent study: http://www.socwk.utah.edu/sri/index.html.
 
We urge Senator Hatch to resist any reduction from what is in the WORK Act in terms of countable activities for purposes of meeting state participation rates. Specifically, we know that Senator Hatch has a strong commitment to increasing the role of education and training in family self-sufficiency options. We applaud that and believe that the SRI study also provides strong evidence of the wisdom in this. In addition to education and training, we believe that SRI has found a very real need for some parents (and their families) to get help with other types of barriers such as mental health and substance abuse treatment. While many TANF parents in Utah participate in many useful activities that are not "countable" for purposes of meeting state participation rates, as participation rates are increased, states can be expected to require increasingly more TANF parents to participate in activities that will be countable so as to avoid penalties. In a very real way, we see higher federally-prescribed state participation rates as a primary factor in reducing state programmatic flexibility that was a hallmark of the 1996 welfare reform law. Under that circumstance, the way to retain flexibility so that states can still address what we know are very real work barriers of their families is to broaden the list of countable activities from which they are able to choose when IRPs are developed. The more constricted and prescriptive the list of "countable activities" becomes, the farther away from addressing true family employability needs Utah and other states will be force to move.
 
We also urge Senator Hatch to support inclusion of the specific new exemptions in the WORK Act: allowing states to remove parents from the work calculation if they have qualified for SSI (this only makes sense because, by qualifying for SSI, they are by eligibility definition, unable to work), allowing states to exclude participants in a direct services tribal job training program from participation rate calculations, and allowing states to exclude families that include an adult caring for a family member with a disability.

B) WORK Act provisions that excluded TANF funding from time limits. We understand that the Heritage Foundation has suggested that exempting supplemental housing benefits for employed families from time limits is part of an overall attempt by framers of the WORK Act to undercut time limited welfare. We see it quite differently. We believe it is a valid way to address the family formation purposes of the 1996 welfare reform law. We believe it would contribute significantly to efforts to stabilize poor families by easing tensions over the lack of money. We are on record recommending acknowledgment of the role of economic instability in jeopardizing marriages and increasing domestic violence. It is clear that the nationwide shortage of affordable housing for poor families means that housing costs place tremendous pressure on their budgets and contribute directly to frequent moving and homelessness, both of which are highly disruptive for children, both socially and educationally. These families are working, certainly at low wage jobs. It seems to us that, in the next phase of welfare reform, we should be refining our approaches to keep families together and to support work. This provision does both.
 
C) The Employment Credit undermined the work requirement. As we have looked further into this charge, we can see some cause for criticism of the work requirement in the 2002 WORK Act. However, we do not believe that continuing emphasis on caseload reduction--even in conjunction with instituting an employment credit--is positive. In fact, not to be politically naive, we are somewhat at a loss as to why there are objections to trying to reward states specifically for getting people into jobs/better jobs. We have thought carefully about whether the concept of an employment credit is really the problem, or whether the employment credit that finally emerged in the WORK Act was too broad. In the midst of our thinking, we read carefully what the President has said in introducing his 2003 WR proposal. It seems clear that he fully intends that people will be assisted to leave welfare for employment. He is celebrating those who have. His 2002 proposal called for a phase out of the caseload reduction credit in favor of a kind of employment credit. There is nothing in what he says to suggest that he favors people leaving the rolls just to be gone. In other words, you spoke of Senator Hatch's commitment to helping people "get somewhere," rather than simply "getting off welfare." It appears to us that President Bush is of the same mind. We may rue the fact that the "old" employment credit in the 2002 WORK Act grew to include quite so many components, but it seems that there would be support, at least from the Administration, for working on a purely "employment credit." Could we, therefore, take the Employment Credit that is in the WORK Act and pick through each piece to ensure that all it does is reward states for helping people get somewhere (become employed), with an additional incentive to help them get better jobs. As we noted in a recent email, we are talking with others about a way to modify the employment credit in the WORK Act so that it truly accomplished that goal. To the extent that that can be done, we believe that a new version of the employment credit can be fashioned--one that will send the right message and gain support of the Administration and others who were critical of the first version. We will say more about this as a proposal we support emerges. We would also be happy to respond to any ideas on this subject of which you are aware.
      
Last Friday (January 17), we held the "kick-off" meeting of the new phase of UREAP, adding WIA reauthorization to our current efforts on Welfare Reform. We know attendees appreciate your work and we will look forward to keeping in touch in the future. Jace, please visit our website (http://www.slcap.org/UREAP/ureap.htm) and let us know if we can help.
 
Sincerely,
 
Shirley Weathers and Bill Walsh, UREAP staff
Walsh & Weathers Research and Policy Studies