Date

The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch

U.S. Senate

8402 Federal Building

125 So. State Street

Salt Lake City, UT 84138

Dear Senator Hatch:

We are writing to you today to provide our perspective on key elements of welfare reform reauthorization legislation being considered by the Senate Finance Committee. The business community has welcomed the opportunity to provide employment for those families transitioning off public assistance in Utah since the passage of welfare reform in 1996. However, it is our view that a proposal for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and related programs by Committee Chairman Grassley lacks treatment of a number of important issues and includes several provisions that we believe will make it less attractive for employers to hire parents of welfare families. We ask you to consider four specific issues: 1) funding for child care for children of TANF and other low-income employed parents, 2) weekly hours of participation to be required of parents, 3) the role of education and training in developing the workforce, and 4) the real-life barriers of welfare recipients in the workplace.

Funding for child care. As employers, we learned long ago that to be productive, working parents must enjoy a comfort level with regard to the well-being of their children. When parents are worried about their children, their performance on the job suffers. Absenteeism and late arrival at work results when affordable child care cannot be found or is unreliable. Moreover, in the bigger picture, for our society to sustain its high quality of life, it is essential that children of all socio-economic levels receive good quality care and socialization. We value their parents' work; we must not let those children fall by the wayside.

We are convinced that there is not enough funding for low-income child care currently, and both the House welfare reauthorization bill (HR 4) and the Grassley proposal would increase work requirements in ways that will put even more children in need of child care. We are persuaded that the $1 billion funding increase in HR 4 is not enough of an increase. We are alarmed to understand that Chairman Grassley's proposal omits this matter entirely. Over the years, you have been a leader in the U.S. Congress on the child care issue and we applaud the strides you have championed for appropriate and necessary increases in child care funding for low-income families. Last year you supported $5.5 billion in additional mandatory child care funding.

We strongly urge you to exert your leadership to ensure that $5.5 billion is in any bill that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee.

The role of education and training. The programmatic flexibility built into the TANF program has allowed and encouraged Utah to help TANF recipients upgrade their skills to some extent through pertinent education and training. In Utah, this began even earlier than 1996. To the extent that this occurs, the business community is able to find hiring these individuals advantageous. We need to hire skilled workers. Short-term training as the only option is sometimes not enough. Moreover, through training and education, our employees can increase their earning power at the same time as they increase their value in and contributions to the workplace. Everybody wins. However, the current law places excessive restrictions on the number of months of education and training that can be allowed to count as "participation." We believe reauthorization should include an enhancement. HR 4 and the Grassley Proposal unwisely reduce months from the current law. Full-time employment and jobs with higher incomes are essential if TANF recipients are to reach self-sufficiency. Without education and training opportunities, neither of these goals are possible for some people. Utah should have the flexibility to decide when longer term education and training are appropriate and necessary. This will create a better prepared labor pool from which to hire and will make it possible for TANF recipients to compete for better jobs.

We support your past efforts to increase the allowable months of education and training to 24 months and hope you are able to accomplish the same enhancement this year. Please also oppose efforts, as in HR 4 and the Grassley Proposal, to further limit vocational education.

Weekly hours of participation. Proposals to increase the "work week" for TANF recipients beyond the current 30 hours (with 24 hours, rather than the current 20 in paid employment) will stress and complicate their lives in ways that we anticipate will reduce their effectiveness on the job and reflect a misunderstanding of current-day employment practices. Increasingly, a broad range of employers elect to hire people for fewer than 40 hours per week. Most set "part-time" work at 20 hours, not 24. HR 4 and the Grassley Proposal, requiring 40 and 34 total hours of participation, respectively, of which the first 24 hours must be paid employment, call for participation scenarios that do not fit the real world. For our employees who are enrolled in TANF to perform additional hours of some other allowable activity after finishing their workday with us, many will need to juggle additional child care arrangements and transportation, challenges that are likely to reduce their ability to focus on their work. We want to help fulfill the mission of welfare reform and frankly see employment for TANF recipients as the best course for them and the labor pool. However, welfare policies are counterproductive when they exert negative impacts on job performance. The "40-hour work week" is simply not nearly the reality that it may have been in the past and we see no reason for welfare recipients, often already facing special challenges, to be required to work for more hours per week than the majority of non-TANF employees.

We urge you to endeavor to ensure that the Senate legislation maintains the weekly hours of participation requirements in the current law (30 hours for parents with children over six; 20 hours for parents with children under six) in order to prevent discouraging employers from hiring TANF recipients.

Addressing the real life barriers of welfare recipients in the workplace. Studies of welfare recipients reflect what employers have found on the job: many of these parents suffer from treatable mental health and substance abuse problems, have gaps in their educational and work skills, have physical disabilities, and may be dealing with behavioral problems or disabilities of their children. Despite full recognition of these facts, we support the goals of 1996 welfare reform to assist these parents to become engaged in the labor force. We need the help of Congress and designers of welfare programs, though, to ensure that their problems do not disrupt our primary business objectives. Effective supports for these parents help us as employers, as well as the employees. We hear of various policy options and are unsure of which will work best. However, our message to you must be that, if we are to continue to play a role in providing employment to welfare recipients, we need to know that policies allow them to get full access to the amount and type of interventions they need to progress and cope in their jobs. For example, we suspect that three months of mental health treatment, regardless of circumstances and degree of problem, is an ineffective maximum. If we know a troubled employee cannot get the services he or she needs, the long-term impact is to cause us to shy away from hiring from this pool of individuals that is at statistical risk of having such problems.

We therefore urge you to work with others on your Committee to increase the role that barrier-removal activities can play in the lives of welfare recipients and address the situations faced by families dealing with disabilities. Only then can these individuals confront work with the basic requirements to be reliable employees.

Public assistance programs like TANF, Medicaid, nutrition programs, and housing assistance play key roles in our state's economy. While they assist families with basic needs, the funds are immediately injected into local economies and thereby support jobs, employers, and employees. The reauthorization of these programs offers an opportunity to respond to our growing understanding of the population that is directly served, as well as their potential role in developing our economy and healthier communities. With TANF reauthorization, we have a chance to enhance the role that government can play in encouraging work and self-reliance in a real-world way that does not have the unintended consequence of discouraging employers from hiring welfare recipients. Thank you for considering our suggestions to this end.

We thank you for your strong leadership on issues that impact the nation's business sector and the nation's economic development.

Sincerely,

Signature(s)