Comment of the Utah Reauthorization Project (UREAP)

Submitted to

Senate Finance Committee

Welfare Reform Reauthorization: Refining for the Next Phase

March 26, 2003

Utah Reauthorization Project (UREAP)

Shirley Weathers, Ph.D. and Bill Walsh, Staff

P. O. Box 270090

Fruitland, UT 84017-0090

435-548-2630

wrw@ubtanet.com

The Utah Reauthorization Project (UREAP) has been studying welfare reform reauthorization since April 2001, seeking common ground modifications to the 1996 Welfare Reform Law for the next phase of welfare reform. UREAP is a statewide entity with 28 official member organizations (listed on page 8) and works through monthly meetings and electronic connections, including a website and an email list of over 400 Utahns. We followed and appreciated greatly the work of this Committee last year as the bipartisan working group engaged in careful and thoughtful study of what has been learned during the first phase of the new welfare system. We are honored as Utah citizens to work with Senator Orrin Hatch on this important matter that directly affects the lives of many vulnerable families in our state and across the nation and indirectly affects us all. We look forward to continuing to work for reauthorization measures that will build on successes to date, and that refine the welfare system on the bases of what is working and what still needs to be done.

In this comment, we will first discuss some key questions as this Committee embarks on drafting Welfare Reform Reauthorization legislation. We will follow that with discussion of some additional issues that we believe warrant consideration.

What is effective to move families into meaningful activities?

This is a central question for 2003 Welfare Reform Reauthorization. President Bush has proposed increasing work participation rates, narrowing the focus of what activities can be counted towards those rates, and increasing the number of hours per week parents must engage in those activities to be counted. Many states, including Utah, have indicated that this combination of changes may require them to change the directions they have chosen. There is widespread concern that the President's proposal would leave no choice but to divert a percentage of available resources to operate workfare programs. A workfare system runs contrary to what Utah has found to be helpful for families to reach self-sufficiency.

UREAP believes a better strategy to move families into meaningful activities involves a different combination of elements:

• Maintaining the current commitment to state and local decision-making. The 1996 Welfare Reform Law promised flexibility to enable states to seek the best ways to help their families become employed and self-reliant. States like Utah have used that flexibility to help families to move forward and succeed. Utah began decades ago to experiment with ways to help welfare families get into the workforce, culminating in 1993 with the Single Parent Employment Demonstration (SPED) Program. Due to its success, SPED was taken statewide in 1995. With the flexibility Congress allowed states in the 1996 Law, Utah has been able to continue with its proven approach and build on its long-standing success. This part of the 1996 law should not be lost with reauthorization.


• Encouraging states to place families with barriers to employment in activities that result in progress towards employability. Before the 1996 Welfare Law passed, a handful of states including Utah had learned that welfare caseloads are made up of families in a variety of circumstances and conditions. As a result, Utah's SPED policy provided that individualized family Employment Plans would be developed to include activities designed to lead to employability. Some of the plans outlined a route directly to work, but others acknowledged that, due to multiple and often severe barriers of parent or family or both, success in the workplace would require other interventions on the way. Utah's TANF program, the Family Employment Program or FEP, has continued that approach. Since 1996, the Department of Workforce Services has commissioned research to build on existing knowledge of family barriers and to assist in the development of strategies that would facilitate the ability of those families to progress and succeed in the world of work. The studies found that a large percentage of families in the study who did not move off welfare quickly into work have health, mental health, or substance abuse problems; had disabilities themselves or a disabled child; lacked English proficiency, educational, or work skills or history; or included children with a variety of problems besides disabilities that needed to be solved if the parent were to be able to work. Often long-term families were found to have a combination of the above problems.

In a phase of the study that focused on members of this cohort who had left welfare, researchers found that a substantial percentage of these families were not working. These families were deteriorating. They tended to have failed to receive     effective interventions for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, the research showed that, with effective interventions, other troubled families in the study group could and did ultimately succeed in the workplace. It is essential, we believe,     that welfare reform reauthorization respond to the realities documented by Utah and other research over the past five       years by including at least mental health and substance abuse treatment to the list of countable activities in the current law. This will be especially important if work participation rates are increased.



• Allowing states to place families in activities that enhance their ability to achieve self-sufficiency. Many families-both on and off welfare-are working. However, research on TANF incomes makes it clear that jobs obtained by most TANF recipients pay too little for those families to truly become self-reliant. They therefore fall short of the an important goal of 1996 Welfare Reform Law. As noted above, Utah's experience with tailoring participation activities to the individual parent/family convinces us of the value and effectiveness of allowing a broad range of work-related activities to be components in Employment Plans. Some of those address barriers to work, as noted above; others help families move closer to a family-sustaining earning power. The consistently low wages and poor or non-existent benefit packages that have been available to families who have moved from welfare to work call for new strategies to raise their skill levels, enhance their earning power, and help them move forward into more stable, family-sustaining jobs. To that end, we support the addition of substantially more months of education and training as countable activities-at least the 24 months included in the WORK Act of 2002-as well as Literacy and English Proficiency activities. Access to work-related education and training that allow parents to obtain better-paying, more stable jobs, will result in better outcomes for families.


• Ensuring that the circumstances, capabilities, and barriers of TANF parents and families are known early on.  UREAP supports the concept of universal engagement, coupled with early development by participant parents of Individual Responsibility Plans (IRPs), that was included in the WORK Act of 2002. This construct was another central component of the Single Parent Employment Demonstration (SPED) Program that has been carried forward in Utah's TANF program. The philosophy behind it was that almost everyone can be doing something to move towards greater self-reliance and beginning the process early on is helpful to families. The interaction between parents and employment counselors provides the opportunity for barriers to be identified and appropriate services to be arranged quickly after the family's time clock begins to tick.

         One of UREAP's Principles for Welfare Reform Reauthorization is to "emphasize the care and well-being of children, as              they are the majority of welfare recipients." In last year's WORK Act, this Committee's bipartisan group went beyond                 Utah's SPED and its TANF program by including a specific assessment of the well-being of children in the self-sufficiency          planning process in the WORK Act. UREAP and many others have indicatedconcern that the well-being of children has          been largely ignored during these first years of welfare reform. We encourage the Committee to carry forward the                    inclusion of anassessment of child well-being as a part of the IRP process into whatever legislation is prepared this year.

• Rewarding states for what we value in Welfare Reform. Self-sufficiency through work is a clear aim of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law, yet under the current law states are rewarded for reducing caseloads. There is general agreement that the true success of welfare reform occurs when parents are able to become employed at stable jobs that pay family-sustaining wages and include the opportunity for advancement. However, only a portion of those who have left the welfare rolls did so due to employment. Research shows that families who are off welfare and not working are generally doing poorly and have little hope of reversing their circumstances. Additionally, as noted above, welfare leavers who are working may be doing better, but they are making below-poverty wages. They are still dependent on other government and private sector assistance, and often the jobs they get are unstable.

   We can see now that the caseload reduction credit in the current law is not actually rewarding what we value, nor is it        rewarding states for doing what works for a large group of families. UREAP therefore supports the elimination of the         caseload reduction credit in favor of a standard that rewards states for helping families find employment, retaining              employment, and increasing their incomes, not just for getting people off of welfare. Assisting families to obtain part-time  work is also of value; therefore states should receive credit for the hours parents work, even if they are not able to find      full-time work. This is important, not only because of the growing tendency of employers to shy away from full-time jobs  or during times of job shortage, but also for people with disabilities who are able and anxious to work, but whose              conditions may prevent them from working part-time.

• Taking a cautious approach to increasing work hours. There has been considerable discussion of increasing the number of hours a TANF parent must engage in countable activities to be counted towards a state's participation rate. We find the President's proposal and HR 4's provision to increase the required hours to count to 40 hours per week excessive and very burdensome for families. We do not believe it is positive to increase work hours beyond the current law.


• Avoiding an increase in work participation rates at this time. UREAP believes that progressively increasing work participation rates, as prescribed in HR 4, is unnecessary if an approach similar to the recommendations we outlined above are implemented. As noted above, many states have said that an increase in work participation rates as provided in HR 4 will force them to divert resources to operate workfare programs, an existing option that few states have found suitable to the goal of promoting self-sufficiency. Moreover, if work participation rates are increased in concert with other, related provisions of HR 4- increasing work hours and constricting countable activities-it seems doubtful that states can avoid making dramatic overhauls to their programs. Welfare Reform Reauthorization legislation should facilitate, not disrupt, state programs that are working.

What will it take to adequately fund what needs to occur during the next phase of welfare reform?

• At least maintenance of the current TANF Block Grant funding level. TANF Block Grant funding of $16.5 billion per year is needed. Although caseloads have declined, there is still work to be done to enhance and accomplish successful self-sufficiency efforts by vulnerable families--both on and off welfare. This will require resources. In Utah, as elsewhere, over half of federal TANF dollars are spent on types of assistance other than monthly cash assistance, including supportive services for many of the families who are now off welfare and working at low-wage jobs. Additionally, economic weakness such as that we are currently experiencing exerts a negative impact on low-skilled workers. Caseloads in almost all states are going back up as low-end jobs are phased out. At least flat funding from previous years will be important to states like Utah that are in serious fiscal crisis.


• Extension of the Contingency Fund and Supplemental Grants is also important, for reasons stated just above.


• Restoring the original funding level of $2.8 billion annually and 10 percent transferability for the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) will assist Utah to serve vulnerable populations including senior citizens, people with disabilities, poor families, and families with serious barriers.


• An increase in funding for child care is critically needed to provide care to a larger proportion of low-income eligible children not now being served, including children with disabilities. It is essential to be mindful of the inextricable connection between work requirements and child care funding. Going into Reauthorization discussions, some types of care-for ill children and those with disabilities, for children whose parents have shift or weekend work, and for infants-were beyond the ability of states to provide. As proposal to increase work requirements are put forward, it appears almost certain that needed gains in the area of specialized care are falling beyond reach. HR 4's provision for Discretionary Funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)-$2.1 billion in FY 2003 with increases each year to $3.1 billion by FY 2008 and $2.9 billion annually in Mandatory Funds-is very far from adequate. Substantially greater funding increases are needed if children are to be safe while their parents work. We must be extremely cautious that war, homeland security, and tax cuts do not leave a large percentage of our nation's poor children more vulnerable to harm than they already are.

Additional issues

• Designation of child care and transportation to "non-assistance." We support reclassification of child care and transportation to "non-assistance" and permission to states to draw down unobligated funds for a Rainy Day Fund, as were included in the bipartisan WORK Act.


• Two-parent disincentives. It only makes sense as we focus on family formation to ensure that we systematically remove disincentives to two-parent families needing help from government programs.

• Family promotion. We appreciate an approach to promoting healthy families that avoids funding set-asides or strategies that would harm families. We favor legislative encouragement of healthy marriages, support for teen pregnancy prevention efforts, and approaches that acknowledge the difficult reality of harmful marriages-including those involving domestic violence. Additionally, research shows that economic stress is a frequent source of marital discord. We believe that states should be allowed to expend family promotion funding in ways that alleviate family poverty or help families meet basic needs.


• Child support. It is important and productive to increase child support pass-through to TANF families.

• Sanctions. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for TANF parents with multiple barriers to manifest their personal and family difficulties through participation problems. In Utah since 1993, a carefully crafted "Conciliation Process" has been employed to help parents and employment counselors discover the source of participation problems and work together to find solutions. We recommend that Utah's sanction policy-specifically as it requires a very thorough and systematic conciliation process-be considered as a new requirement for states via reauthorization of the 1996 welfare reform law. We noted above in our discussion of the value of Individual Responsibility Plans that in a time-limited assistance program requiring work of many families with multiple and sometimes severe barriers, identifying barriers and providing effective services and interventions to address those barriers is essential-and the sooner the better. The first opportunity is through the initial assessment and IRP development stage. Many barriers, though, are difficult to recognize and some are of a nature that parents are reluctant or embarrassed to disclose. They may even be unaware of their nature. Therefore, the second opportunity to discover and intervene comes when a participation problem is perceived. In Utah, this triggers a closer look at parent and family circumstances, when possible involving a professional social worker who can spot hidden or unrecognized problems.

Sanctions have played an enormous, but thus far poorly understood, role in caseload reductions. As mentioned above,      Utah researchers and others have found that many families who have been sanctioned are not faring well. To improve the  sanction process so that it becomes a tool to help families attain self-sufficiency, rather than a policy that disconnects         families from help, is a valuable addition to the current Law. Our suggestion starkly contrasts with what is provided in HR  4. HR 4 would mandate full family sanction on a set time schedule, thus forcing Utah to abandon this home-grown,            effective policy that aims to resolve participation problems and help families move ahead. We believe the approach in HR  4 is a serious mistake, especially when Utah's research on sanctioned families indicates a high level of sanctioned family     disintegration.

• Immigrants. Utah has continued to provide financial and employment assistance to legal immigrants after 1996 by using all state dollars. This has been done for a number of reasons, one of which is a belief that leaving immigrant families out when they need help will only cost our society more in the long term. There is a great human potential to be realized to the extent that all of our residents are able to meet their basic needs. Congress acknowledged this in its restoration of legal immigrant eligibility for Food Stamps in the Farm Bill of 2002. We believe a positive change to the 1996 Welfare Reform Law would be to allow states to expend TANF dollars to provide assistance to legal immigrants, making it possible for Utah to devote more of its MOE dollars to other needed services. We also favor allowing state options to expend SCHIP and Medicaid monies on children and pregnant legal immigrants.

• Tribes. UREAP is on record supporting more resources for Tribal organizations, increasing the quality and types of services they can provide to their people and making it more feasible for them to operate their own welfare programs as the law allows. HR 4 allows access to more resources available to states. This is a welcome change. However, more resources that will facilitate gains in economic development are needed. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has developed a set of recommendations that address concerns and propose solutions to improve TANF operations in Indian Country. UREAP supports those recommendations.


• Maintenance of Effort. We believe that states should continue their commitment to working families by extending the state contribution through the maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement.

• Transitional Medical Assistance Program.Utah was among the first states to recognize the critical nature of a mechanism to provide health care support to families trying to get off welfare through work. Then and now, it is the rare job welfare parents get that offers health care benefits. Utah's SPED included a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide Transitional Medicaid to clients whose cases closed due to earnings for two years and Utah's TANF program, the Family Employment Program, has been able to continue that practice. Any enhancements that can be made to Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA) services for these families are among the best investments that can be made in their chances for success. A parent with a medical need who cannot obtain care is at risk of having all of her gains short-circuited. We encourage consideration through reauthorization of lengthening eligibility to two years, as Utah has done.


• Spending Flexibility . We recommend that states be allowed to designate "Rainy Day Funds" and to have greater flexibility regarding carried-over funds. We also favor increasing state flexibility to transfer TANF funds to carry out existing transportation-for-jobs programs or reverse-commute projects.

• Accountability. We recommend that states be held accountable for outcomes, rather than such measures as participation rates. This would have an additional advantage of making TANF performance measures compatible with those of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) which governs some of the training activities available to TANF participants.

• Research on "what works." UREAP recommends that funding be made available for longitudinal and other studies of family outcomes and well-being. Studies of the circumstances of leaver families are also important. Such studies should prove invaluable as we continue to learn from and make adjustments to our welfare system and the families who utilize it.

We appreciate this opportunity to convey our views to the Committee during these early stages of your consideration of Welfare Reform Reauthorization in 2003. We would be happy to answer any questions or respond to any comments regarding what we have written.

Utah Reauthorization Project Member Organizations