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Human Services Committee Action Alert

Senate Poised to Mark-up Welfare Reform Reauthorization Bills: Your Calls Needed

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 June 17, 2002

The Chair and Ranking Member Senator Baucus (D-MT) and Senator Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Finance Committee have instructed their staff to craft a bipartisan Senate bill based on an agreement on welfare reform principles previously announced by a tripartisan group of Senators-- Breaux (D-Louisiana), Hatch (R-Utah), Lincoln (D-Arkansas), Jeffords (I-Vermont), Snowe (R-Maine) and Rockefeller (D-West Virginia). This is great news for states. NCSL commended these Senators for respecting state efforts and consulting state legislators in crafting their proposal. (The NCSL press release can be found online at http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2002/pr020503.htm.) NCSL staff have met with the Finance Committee staff almost daily to provide state input. Markup will be the week of June 24^th, possibly on June 25^th. Senate staff are saying that they have not been hearing from state policy makers. Your comments are critical.

Staff is still drawing up the legislative language, but we believe the Chairman's bill will:

• Retain the current overall work requirement of 30 hour per week, but require 24 hours of the hours to be in a work activity as defined under current law and retain the current requirement of 20 hours per week for parents with a child under 6;
• Require states to meet an overall participation rate that incrementally increases by 5% a year to 70%.
• Expand the definition of work as follows: counts vocational education as meeting the job requirement for up to 24 months; counts adult basic education for up to three months (with an additional three months under certain circumstances), counts substance abuse treatment for up to three months (with an additional three months under certain circumstances; and
• Require "universal engagement" of all recipients of cash assistance.

All of these changes agree with NCSL's welfare reform reauthorization policy and members should be encouraged to retain them in the final bill. (NCSL's policy can be located at http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2002/WRRPolicy2.htm)

AT THIS CRITICAL STAGE IN THE PROCESS, SENATORS NEED TO HEAR HOW FLEXIBILITY IS NEEDED TO MAINTAIN STATE SUCCESS AND TO MEET NEW CHALLENGES FOR THOSE WHO REMAIN ON THE CASELOAD INCLUDING THE HARD TO SERVE AND AN UNCERTAIN ECONOMY. STATE BUDGETS CANNOT ABSORB FEDERAL COST-SHIFTS.

Your calls to Senators are critical to ensure that the Senate enacts a state-friendly bill unlike H.R. 4737, the House passed bill, which shifts significant costs to states. We especially need to weigh in on the following issues:

• WORK REQUIREMENTS AND DEFINITION OF WORK. The rigid 40 hours of participation in the House bill will compromise states' ability to allocate resources to best serve individual recipients. The 30 hour requirement in the tripartisan agreement emphasizes work activities, but provides states with needed flexibility. Work activities must allow for a range of state-chosen strategies such as private sector job placement, training, education, and substance abuse/mental illness treatment.
• CHILD CARE. Child care is a critical need for low-income families struggling to leave welfare for employment. Additional federal funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant must be provided, especially to accommodate increases in states' work participation rates which will require more parents to work longer hours, and new universal engagement requirements that will have more parents engaged in activities away from their children. Child care funds must be as flexible as possible.
• EMPLOYMENT CREDIT An employment credit is the best way to reward state success in moving people to self-sufficiency. NCSL supports Senator Lincoln's employment credit, which was incorporated into the tripartisan agreement and must be included in the Senate bill. It values and gives states credit for recipients who are in private sector work and part time employment. It does not penalize states for families who qualify for SSI or who are diverted directly to employment. (A summary of the proposal is located online at http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/humserv/wrr_levin.htm)
• STATE OPTION TO SERVE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH TANF, SCHIP & MEDICAID. States also believe that they should have the option to provide legal immigrants with TANF-funded services such as ESL classes that will enable them to get jobs. The denial of most federal benefits to legal immigrants that occurred when PRWORA was enacted was a huge cost shift to the states. There should also be options for states to choose to provide Medicaid and SCHIP to prevent children from developing long-term and chronic health problems that are more expensive to treat and help reduce the demand for emergency room services.

The House bill (H.R. 4737) has significant mandates on states. We need a Senate bill that is much more flexible so that we will come out of the conference process with a bill that allows states to continue our progress in welfare reform. Please contact all of your Senators especially members of the Senate Finance Committee. The members of the Senate Finance Committee are listed below:

Call your Senators to urge that the Senate mark-up and pass a state friendly bill, and if they are not on the Finance Committee, ask that they bring your concerns to their colleagues on the Committee. Your calls are already making a difference. Five Republican Senators (Voinovich, Bennett, Domenici, DeWine and Chafee) have written Senators Baucus and Grassley in support of the tripartisan proposal including the 30 hour work requirement.