Government Relations Update

Senate Finance Committee Passes Amendments to Improve Welfare Bill

"Thanks to all who made calls to their Senators!"

Today by a vote of 13-8, the Senate Finance Committee approved the "Work, Opportunity, and Responsibility for Kids (WORK) Act of 2002." Seven Republicans (Gramm (TX), Grassley (IA), Lott (MS), Kyl (AZ), Nickles (OK), Thomas (WY), Thompson (TN)) and one Democrat (Daschle (SD)) voted against the bill.

Twenty-seven amendments had been filed by Committee members, but not all were offered. Others were offered and then withdrawn and may be acted on when the bill goes to the floor. No harmful amendments were approved. The helpful amendments that were adopted include:

1. Graham (D-FL) amendment to give states the option to use federal Medicaid and SCHIP dollars to cover legal immigrant children and pregnant women.
2. Snowe (R-ME) amendment to allow states to count post-secondary education as an approved work activity for up to 10 percent of the state's caseload.
3. Rockefeller (D-WV) amendment to restore partial funding for the Social Services Block Grant.
4. Conrad (D-ND) amendment to allow states to exempt up to 10 percent of the caseload who are full-time caretakers of family members with disabilities from the TANF work requirements and remove them from the denominator in calculating work participation rates.
5. Baucus (D-MT) amendment to provide $50 million for schools to offer abstinence-first (comprehensive sexuality education), in addition to the $50 million for abstinence-only education.
6. Bingaman (D-NM) amendment to allow states to seek new waivers under TANF that mirror current waivers in other states.
7. Bingaman (D-NM) amendment to allow states to provide health services to immigrants without first screening for legal status.

Other major provisions of the WORK Act include:

ASSESSMENTS

• Requires "universal participation" with state required to conduct screening and assessments of the skills, prior work experience, work readiness, and barriers to employment of TANF applicants and to develop Individualized Responsibility Plans (IRP) for each family.

CASEWORKER TRAINING

• Provides $120 million over 4 years to help implement universal engagement procedures by (1) training caseworkers in identifying barriers to work and indicators of child well-being; (2) coordinating support programs for low-income families; (3) conducting outreach to promote enrollment among eligible families; and (4) creating advisory panels to review policies and procedures for helping persons with barriers to work.
• Requires the General Accounting Office (GAO) to report on implementation of universal engagement procedures.

WORK REQUIREMENTS

• Maintains 30 hour per week work requirement, with increase in "direct work" activity from 20 to 24 hours per week.
• Maintains 20 hour per week work requirement for parents with children under age 6.
• Maintains current definitions of what counts as work.
• Increases work participation rates by 5% per year -- to 70% by 2007.
• Replaces current caseload reduction credit with employment credit.

BARRIERS

• Allows "rehabilitative" services, such as substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, vocational rehabilitation services, adult basic education, and limited English proficiency services, to count as work for 3 out of 24 months, with an additional 3 months allowed when combined with work or job readiness activities.

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

• Increases from 12 to 24 months the time participation in vocational education, including community college programs, may count as work and eliminates teen parents from the 30% cap on the number of recipients who may participate in these activities.

IMMIGRANTS

• Allows states to provide TANF assistance to legal immigrant families who have arrived since enactment of the 1996 welfare law.

FUNDING

• Maintains TANF block grant funding at $16.5 billion per year.

CHILD CARE

• Increases child care funding by $5.5 billion.
• Authorizes $30 million a year for demonstration grants in from 5 to 10 states to create "at-home infant care" programs. Programs would allow mothers with a recent work history and a child under age 2 to stay at home and receive up to the applicable payment rate for state providers of infant care.

TRANSITION JOBS

• Replaces the High Performance Bonus with a $200 million per year competitive grant program, Business Link Partnership for Employers and Nonprofit Organizations. Allows grantees to create or expand programs to improve wages of low-income workers, including those with disabilities and to create or expand supported-work or transitional jobs programs.

FAMILY PROMOTION

• Replaces the current "Illegitimacy" Reduction Bonus with a new $200 million per year Healthy Marriage Promotion grant program. Among the allowable use of funds: pre-marital counseling, marriage skills training, teen pregnancy prevention, and development of best practices for addressing domestic and sexual violence, including caseworker training.

TRANSITIONAL MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

• Extends transitional Medicaid for 5 years.

OUTLOOK

It is not clear when the bill will be debated on the Senate floor. The bill could go to the floor in late July, or possibly in September after the August recess. There are very few legislative days left in the current congressional session--with Members of Congress eager to adjourn in early October to campaign for the November elections--and some predict that if the bill does not go to the Senate floor until September there may be insufficient time to complete negotiations with the House on a final bill prior to adjournment. Complicating the outlook is the possibility of a "lame-duck" session, in which Congress would return after the election to complete unfinished business. If work on a new welfare bill is not completed this year, Congress would pass a one-year extension of current law.

Look for additional ACTION ALERTS in the future!