NCWGE National
Coalition for Women and Girls in Education
Principles for Welfare
Reauthorization
In 1996, the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act dramatically altered the way the federal
government provides financial assistance to needy families. This Act created
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which limits assistance
to 60 months and requires recipients to engage in a prescribed set of work activities.
While this "work first" approach has resulted in a significant decline
in the number of low-income people receiving assistance, it has not enabled
those leaving welfare to escape poverty or even become self-sufficient, staying
off welfare permanently. As Congress reauthorizes the 1996 Act, NCWGE believes
that welfare programs should end the cycle of poverty and give states the flexibility
to promote self-sufficiency through education and job training to help ensure
that women are not locked into low-wage jobs.
NCWGE supports the following
principles for welfare reauthorization:
- The success of the law
must be based on the number of people no longer living in poverty-not on the
number of people no longer receiving assistance. The current law's reliance
on job search and early employment rather than on increasing earnings for
welfare recipients has failed to provide roads to permanent self-sufficiency
and has not significantly lifted women and families out of poverty.
- Because education and
training are crucial means for women to achieve economic self-sufficiency,
states must be given the flexibility to provide the combination of education,
job training, job search, and work that will best help their TANF recipients
to obtain and retain better jobs with higher wages. Toward that end, Congress
should:
- Eliminate the 12-month
limit on vocational education or job training;
- Eliminate the 30
percent cap on the number of families participating in vocational education
or teen parents pursuing a high school diploma in a state's caseload that
can be counted toward federal work participation rates; and
- Allow education leading
to a diploma, GED, certificate, associate's degree, bachelor's degree,
or postsecondary degree to count toward federal work participation rates.
- States should be accountable
for the results of their programs. Allowing states the flexibility to target
recipients with job searches, education, and job and skills training will
enable case workers to respond to welfare recipients' barriers to economic
self-sufficiency as well as the needs of the local labor market. In return,
states should be held accountable for their results. Congress should direct
states to maintain and report on data that will permit evaluation of the efficacy
of different combinations of work, job search, and education and training
activities. Such outcome measures will enable states to better mesh their
education, training, and employment programs for TANF recipients and will
hold states accountable for helping people find work, keep jobs, increase
their wages, and become self-sufficient.
- Welfare recipients should
be protected from all forms of discrimination, and all relevant civil rights
and labor laws should be vigorously enforced. These laws include the Fair
Labor Standards Act; the Equal Pay Act of 1983; Titles VI and VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; Title
IX of the Education Amendments of 1972; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; the
Immigration Reform and Control Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and
the Family and Medical Leave Act.