House Republicans Defend Counterproductive TANF Work Rules

House Republicans will again try to block any and all waivers of the work participation requirements in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

They passed a bill to this effect in mid-March. And we find the equivalent tucked into Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget plan as well.

As I’ve written before, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told states that they could get waivers only if they presented plans that seemed likely to improve employment outcomes, plus measures to track success.

The Republicans are still up in arms. Congressman Dave Camp, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, again asserts that the waivers are illegal — and should be because they will undermine the purported success of the TANF program.

The work requirements were central to this success, he says, and thus helped lead to “more work, more earnings, less welfare dependence, and less poverty among low-income Americans.”

No one would argued that the touted reforms haven’t drastically reduced dependence on “welfare.” In 1996, when TANF was created, 68% of poor families with children received cash assistance. In 2010, only 27% did.

Meanwhile, the number of families with children poor enough to fall below the very low poverty thresholds increased by 17%.

For single-mother families — the large majority of those TANF serves — the latest reported poverty rate is 40.7%. These undoubtedly include families in the program, since no state provides cash benefits equal to even 50% of the federal poverty line.

It’s nevertheless true that many single mothers entered the workforce in the late 1990s. Experts give the TANF work requirements some credit for this, but note also the importance of other factors.

Two seem especially important because they help explain not only the sharp uptick in single-mother employment, but the downward slide since, as well as the disproportionately high rate of poverty among single-mother families.

The labor market in the late 1990s was unusually tight. And the demand for low-wage workers in particular was unusually high.

So it was relatively easy for TANF parents to get hired. Generally not for jobs that paid enough to support them and their children, however.

Nor to move up to better-paying jobs that offered some modicum of stability and essential benefits, e.g., paid leave, health insurance.

Which brings us back to the issue of the work participation requirements. They are, indeed, a core part of the TANF program we’ve got.

But they’re also the core of the program’s failure to help poor parents move from welfare to work that ends not only their dependency on, but their need for government benefits — one of the main goals Congress defined when it created TANF.

The work participation requirements fly in the face of a basic good management principle. They hold states accountable for process, not outcomes, as a new brief from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains.

Process, in this case, means that states must have set percents of the parents in their caseloads engaged for a set number of hours in one or more of a set of activities defined in the law.

At the same time, states can avoid penalties for failing to hit their required participation rate by reducing their caseloads — in any manner they choose.

Both the “countable” activities limit and the caseload reduction option encourage agencies to push TANF parents into the first job they can find — or to direct their contractors to gear their services to this “work first” approach.

On top of this, the law effectively prevents states from achieving the best long-term employment outcomes because it imposes several different limits on how much they can count participation in education programs as part of work activities. For example:

• They can count hours spent in these programs for only 30% of the parents in their caseloads — and then only for 20 hours a week, counting homework, if supervised.
• Vocational education training is okay, but only for a lifetime total of 12 months.
• Coursework leading to a four-year or advanced degree is not countable at all.

At the same time, the work participation requirements constrain states from fully addressing severe, relatively common barriers to work, e.g., mental health and/or substance abuse problems.

Parents with these problems generally can’t perform countable work activities on an ongoing basis — at least not for the average per week hours required.

But their participation in programs designed to help them resolve such problems is countable for only four consecutive weeks and for a total of only six — or in some cases, twelve — weeks a year.

So some states create hurdles to keep these parents out of their programs, as Elizabeth Lower-Basch at CLASP recently testified. States that want to help must pay for separate programs* or risk penalties.

Finally, states get no credit for parents who perform countable work activities for fewer than the required number of hours. This, among other things, punishes them for accommodating limits related to disabilities, as federal law requires.

One result of all these rules and restrictions is that agency staff spend an inordinate amount of their time determining and recording countable hours.

This is time that’s not available to work with TANF parents so that they get — and stay — employed. (Such figures as we have suggest considerably more success in job finding than job keeping.)

No matter, so far as the law is concerned.

As CBPP says, “TANF is the only employment program in which getting participants into paid work is not a key success measure” — or so far as I can tell, a measure states need concern themselves with at all.

This is what House Republicans hope to protect from experiments that could help produce an enlightened reform of welfare reform.

* Some states — apparently not many — also use these programs to support parents in postsecondary education programs.

Where Did All the Welfare Money Go?

We all know that Republican policymakers view Temporary Assistance for Needy Families as a resounding success.

Look, they say, at how caseloads fell after Congress ended welfare as we knew it — and President Clinton signed off on the deal. We should turn more programs into block grants like TANF — Medicaid and SNAP (the food stamp program) for starters.

Caseloads did indeed fall. And they barely rose when the Great Recession set in.

Only 27% of poor parents with children got any TANF cash benefits in 2010 — 41% fewer than the year TANF was born.

And those benefits were woefully paltry — for a family of three, less than 30% of the federal poverty line in all but eight states.

A new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tells us why.

It’s not just because Congress has never increased the block grant funds states get as the federal government’s share, thus letting them lose at least 28% of their value.

Nor because Congress cut — and then wiped out — supplemental grants that some states had always received to compensate for ways the block grant formula short-changed them.

It’s because states are spending large chunks of their block grant funds and/or the funds they’ve got to put up as a partial match* on programs that aren’t only — or even mainly — for TANF families.

In other words, because they’re creatively exercising the much-vaunted flexibility that block grants like TANF provide.

Last year, for example, states spent, on average, only 29% of their TANF funds on cash assistance.

Another 9.4% went for services that help move families from welfare to work, e.g., education, job training, transportation assistance.

Child care subsidies accounted for another 17%. They too help move families from welfare to work, but they don’t necessarily go only to TANF and former TANF families.

What about the rest of the money?

Well, some of it paid for states’ refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, some for programs to promote marriage and discourage out-of-wedlock births and some for other legally-authorized purposes, e.g., programs states had spent money on before TANF was created.

The expenditures “authorized under prior law” don’t have to meet any of the goals Congress established for TANF. Many states, for example, claim child welfare spending as part of their match, though their programs rightly address child neglect and abuse at all income levels.

States also, CBPP reports, have claimed spending on their pre-K programs and on higher education grants for students with incomes way above the TANF eligibility level.

Such spending apparently gets lumped into an “other non-assistance” spending category in their reports to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Child welfare services may get reported this way, as may various other services, e.g., for domestic violence, mental health and substance abuse, payments to third parties for food assistance and/or shelter.

Bottom line is that states have been using TANF funds to replace funds they’d previously budgeted for these diverse purposes — or would have had to budget, using funds from other sources.

This, of course, frees up funds for other programs that have nothing whatever to do with the safety net or helping low-income families toward self-sufficiency.

There’s lots of variation among states, however. CBPP provides summaries for each and the District of Columbia.

So we learn that, in 2011, the District spent:

• No more of its TANF funds on cash assistance than it did 10 years before — $67 million. True level funding, i.e., with adjustments for inflation, would have called for somewhat over $85 million.
• Just $1 million more on work-related activities — again, as compared to 2001. This means about $6.2 million less when we account for inflation.
• $5 million more on child care, but less in inflation adjusted dollars.

Spending in all these categories declined as a percent of the District’s total TANF spending. The biggest drop was for cash assistance — down by 9%.

Contrariwise, both the percent and absolute dollar value of the combined AUPL/non-assistance category jumped — from $4 million (2%) to $39 million (15%).

Sure would like to know where that money went.

* Under federal rules, states may count third-party spending, both cash and in-kind, as part of their maintenance of effort, i.e., their required match. Thirteen states did in 2011, CBPP’s end-year for spending comparisons.

NOTE: I have made a few wording changes in this post to correct for a misinterpretation of CBPP’s figures on the District’s TANF spending.

One Hand Clapping for DC TANF Families

September 30 is a drop-dead date for some two million poor families nationwide, including about 17,600 in the District of Columbia. It’s also, for different reasons, a drop-dead date for more than a third of these D.C. families.

At the end of the month, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program will expire, unless Congress extends it. Looks as if it will, though for only six months.

Here in the District, September 30 is the end of the fiscal year. The budget that kicks in on October 1 includes a benefits cut for the more than 6,100 families who’ve participated in TANF for more than a lifetime total of five years.

For some of them, it would be a second cut — 45% less than they’d originally received. A mother with two children would have to somehow get along on about $235 a month.

The budget the DC Council passed put a one-year hold on the cuts — as well it should have, since the Department of Human Services hasn’t finished the individual assessments that are supposed to link TANF parents to an appropriate mix of services.

But the hold was contingent on a future forecast that indicated considerably more revenues than the budget assumed.

Ditto for both the additional funds the Council allocated to TANF job training and a reprieve from the five-year time limit for TANF parents who face unusually serious barriers to work.

Well, the last revenue forecast was basically the same as the one before. And there are reasons to believe the next one will be also — if not worse.

Thanks to some smart, persistent advocacy, however, Mayor Gray has found some additional money for TANF in the current year’s budget — $11 million unspent for other programs.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute tells us that the found money will avert further benefits cuts for half the year, beef up the casework staff to get those assessments done and make it possible for 900 more TANF parents to get employment services.

All this assumes the Council will swiftly approve the Mayor’s proposal. Seems likely, given what it’s already passed.

That will surely be good news for TANF families facing imminent benefits cuts — and for many others, since the extra casework and job preparation funds will take DHS closer to delivering on the program improvements its redesign promises.

But we’ll face another crisis at the end of March because the benefits cuts will go forward again — unless more money is found to postpone them.

If all goes according to plan, DHS will just have finished all the individual assessments. Some parents will have, at most, a couple of months of relevant training before they’re punished for earlier program failures.

And what about the parents who are by no means ready to plunge into an education and/or job training plan that might, in the best of circumstances, move them from welfare to work?

The budget the Council passed included indefinite time-limit exemptions for them — not in TANF itself, but by transferring them to POWER (Program on Work Employment and Responsibility).

This too hinged on a higher revenue forecast. And the Mayor’s found money won’t plug the gap.

So the clock will keep ticking for parents who can’t prepare for work because they’re seriously ill, suffering from the trauma of domestic violence or caring for a sick or disabled family member.

All because the District, unlike a number of states, doesn’t exercise its right, under TANF rules, to exempt them from the five-year time limit till they’re ready to put in the required 30 hours a week on permissible work-related activities.

DCFPI says that the Mayor and Council would have to find an additional $5.8 million to keep benefits flowing to these parents and their children — and give another six-month reprieve to the other at-risk TANF families.

Hard to believe they couldn’t if they cared to. For this, they’ve got some time to look.

But I’m told the Council has to approve the proposal for the found money on September 19 because DHS will otherwise begin reprogramming its computers to effect the benefits cuts.

This then is, in one sense, the drop-dead date for some of the District’s poorest families.

Reprieve for DC TANF Families (We Hope)

The DC Council came through for families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — as best it could, given that the budget itself was already set in stone.

After some lengthy and heated discussion, it approved an amendment to the Budget Support Act* that would delay further benefits cuts for families who’ve participated in the program for 60 months or more.

And a good thing too. As I (and others) have argued, these families shouldn’t be penalized because the program has egregiously failed to identify their strengths and needs and to link them to the appropriate mix of services.

The additional year before the cuts resume will supposedly give them an opportunity to benefit from program improvements the Department of Human Services is rolling out.

“Supposedly” because DHS still has a long way to go before completing the assessments that will form the basis for individually-tailored training and supportive services plans. Only 25% completed now, according to Councilmember Jim Graham, who introduced the amendment.

At the current rate, some of the at-risk parents won’t have anything like a full year to benefit from their plans. Whether even a year would be enough to enable some of them to secure — and retain — living-wage jobs is another question.

All but three Councilmembers voted for the amendment — a tribute to some very fine advocacy. That plus an evident desire on the part of a couple of Councilmembers not to be on the losing side of a cause that obviously had majority support.

The Council also unanimously rubber-stamped then-Chairman Kwame Brown’s substitute for the BSA it passed in mid-May.

This too is good news for TANF families and those who care about them because the revised BSA folds in some additional provisions that were part of the proposed TANF Time Limits Amendment — or rather folds in something akin to them.

Most would expand eligibility for POWER (Program on Work, Employment, and Responsibility) — thus shifting some parents out of TANF and shielding them, at least temporarily, from the 60-month time limit.

These are parents who can’t reasonably be expected to meet the TANF program’s regular work activity requirements — those who, for example, are receiving services to help them recover from the trauma of domestic violence, caring for a severely disabled family member or still in their teens and enrolled in school.

Another provision could give parents an additional 24 months to continue their postsecondary education or participation in a training program leading to a certificate or the equivalent.

Smart move since enabling these parents to get those degrees and certificates is the very best thing the program could do to help them achieve self-sufficiency.

Still another provision would prohibit DHS from counting toward the 60 months time that a child received benefits while living with an adult or adults who didn’t.

These so-called child-only cases are often exempt from the standard time limit — as they surely ought to be since one can hardly expect a child to engage in direct preparation for work.

So the Council did the right thing.

But (why is there always a but?) the benefits cuts will go forward as scheduled unless the Chief Financial Officer projects more revenues than the budget assumes.

Specifically, the estimated $3.8 million cost of the delay will be carved out of the additional $14.7 million for TANF job training that’s second on the list of priorities that will get funded if revenue estimates are higher.

In other words, the fate of more than 6,100 families — including nearly 14,000 children — hinges on a projected revenue increase of at least $10.8 million.

The exemptions and exceptions also hinge on higher revenue projections and would be paid for by another carve-out from the job training pool — this one about $1.75 million, according to the BSA.

As some disturbed Councilmembers observed, the time limits delay will eat into additional funding needed to provide appropriate job training and other services — assuming the hoped-for revenues materialize.

So will the exemptions, though no one mentioned it.

The end result is thus a tad perverse, but the Council chose it by not grappling with the timing and coverage of the benefits phase-out earlier.

Or perhaps I should say the former Council Chairman chose it since the BSA was largely an artifact of his private dealings with Mayor Gray’s staff, and both he and the administration apparently underestimated the support the benefits delay would have.

I have nothing like the expertise that would be needed to comb through the Fiscal Year 2013 budget and identify funds that could obviously have been better spent on benefits for the very poor families who rely on them — and on training that would enable many of them to be off “welfare,” which they want as much as the Mayor and Council do.

I’ve just got a hard time believing that everything in the $9.4 billion budget is more important.

As things stand now, we’ve just got to keep our fingers crossed.

* The Budget Support Act is the package that makes whatever legislative changes the Budget Request Act, i.e., the budget proper, requires.