Grassley Welfare Letter

March 30, 2004

The Honorable Charles Grassley
United States Senate
135Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Grassley:

On behalf of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), we are writing to express our appreciation for your efforts to put a state-friendly welfare reform reauthorization bill before the Senate. Welfare reform reauthorization is a priority for states. Great progress was made following the passage of the Personal Resposibility and Work Act of 1996 in moving families from welfare to work, and the programmatic and fiscal certainty of reauthorization will help states continue their progress.

State legislators are very focused on work, and the PRIDE Act emphasizes the dignity of work and rewards state efforts in getting more recipients into work. It raises the bar for states, but does so while expanding the work activities for which work participation credit can be claimed. Being able to count a caretaker of a disabled child or spouse as working is another example of the flexiblity of the bill. In addition, the unique structure of tiers of hours gives states partial credit for those in the difficult transition from welfare to work who are working, but not full-time. States also appreciate that the PRIDE Act recognizes that work requirements for families with young children must take into account family responsibilities and program resources. States agree that imposing full family sanctions is not the province of the federal government, and agree that an employment credit that allows more work effort and more provision of services to low income families to count toward work rates is a good idea.

States are committed to continuing the job of welfare reform. There are priorities of state legislators that must be part of the bill-penalty relief so that states who improve their work rates are not subject to fiscal sanctions and new mandatory child care funding-and we thank you for being receptive to these concerns. A Senate bill that includes these things is one we can support moving forward on. We will be sending other letters on individual amendments that we support as they arise.

Thank you for your leadership on this issue. If you have any additional questions regarding NCSL's position on this issue, please contact Sheri Steisel in our D.C. office at (202) 624-5400 or at sheri.steisel@ncsl.org.

Sincerely,

Melvin Neufeld
Chair, Appropriations Committee
Kansas House of Representatives
Chair, NCSL Human Services and Welfare Committee