August 16, 2006
States Innovate to Meet Tough Federal Welfare Requirements
By Josh Nelson
Nashville Bureau for NCSL
NASHVILLE – Finding the right jobs for welfare recipients can be the hardest part of welfare reform. Successful programs were a focus at the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2006 Annual Meeting in Nashville as part of an overall discussion about welfare reform.
Jack Tweedie, NCSL welfare expert, said work participation programs usually result in enrollees getting “entry level jobs, which have no career ladder.” As a result, he said about 50 percent of parents who leave welfare for work lose their jobs in 12 months.
Innovations in Georgia, Arkansas and California were highlighted as states try to meet tougher welfare-to-work requirements enacted as part of the Budget Reduction Act passed by Congress in December.
In Georgia, they've made a big change in the culture of the state’s Department of Human Resources, according to independent consultant Isabela Blanco, who’s working with the department. She said the problem was that state workers were getting caught in the rut of sitting behind their desks and essentially “trying to keep people on TANF.”
Blanco said they began by emphasizing the need for workers to engage with people needing help, asking them to remember that “welfare is not good enough for any family." She asked them to consider "What would you do if this were your family?"
A “pipeline” concept that allows the state to track job readiness levels, and a change from statewide to regional management with county-based budgeting also proved effective, she said. Work participation rates in Georgia have gone from 8.3 percent in FY 2002 to 66.2 percent in January 2006.
Arkansas, meanwhile, has attacked the problem with a post-employment assistance program called “Work Pays.” The program makes families eligible for continued cash assistance for 24 months after they leave welfare. Parents receive child care and transportation support, as well as employment services designed to keep them in work and help them find better jobs. This in turn “gives them access to better employers,” Tweedie said.
The program is too new to know how well it's working, but state officials estimate that with these changes, their work participation rate could jump 20 percent.
California officials will soon begin to take people who can’t take part in work participation programs and put them in similar, entirely state-funded program that would remove them from federal requirements.
Todd Bland with the state's Office of the Legislative Analyst says enrollees in the state program would consist primarily of those “who have a temporary disability, are over age 60, or are caring for a disabled relative.” Participation in the program would be voluntary, but enrollees would be attracted to the program because “the federal clock on their benefit limits would be stopped.”
Bland estimates the move will raise California’s work participation rate by about two percentage points, and would also likely result in a caseload reduction credit for the state.
All states are scrambling to deal with the welfare-to-work problem, as interim regulations were just released at the end of June, with permanent regulations set to come in October.
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