Welfare Reform: Comments from the Public on TANF Reauthorization (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Dec. 28, 2004 |
| Report Number |
RL31371 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Vee Burke, Gene Falk, Melinda Gish, Shannon Harper, Carmen Solomon-Fears, Karen Spar, and Emilie Stoltzfus, Domestic Social Policy Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The 1996 welfare law repealed the previous Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
program and replaced it with a block grant to states for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF). This landmark legislation required that federally funded cash assistance be time-limited
and conditioned on work, but also gave states great flexibility in the design of their programs. TANF
funding expired at the end of FY2002 and Congress has continued the program and its funding
through a series of temporary extensions. Efforts toward a long-term reauthorization of welfare
reform began during the second session of the 107th Congress and remain on the agenda for the
109th
Congress.
In preparation for the reauthorization debate that began in 2002, the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) solicited public input on TANF during the fall of 2001. HHS conducted a
series of regional "listening and discussion" sessions, and also invited the public to submit
comments, either through the mail or electronically through a specially created website. This report
presents a summary of the comments received by HHS (more than 4,000 were submitted) and is
intended to convey a general sense of the views and opinions expressed. Readers should note that
the persons and groups who submitted comments represented a self-selected and varied group and
may or may not be representative of the larger population.
HHS prescribed no format for the comments, so they were submitted in many forms and sizes.
Some were long essays, others included lengthy lists of ideas, while others submitted just a
paragraph. Some commenters urged comprehensive proposals that dealt not only with TANF but
with related programs and services. Some made comments without necessarily making
recommendations for change. The following general observations might be made about the content
of these "free-form" recommendations:
All categories of commenters wanted Congress either to maintain or increase
the amount of funding available for the TANF block grant.
There was concern that, although welfare reform has succeeded in promoting
work, jobs have failed to end poverty for some families and have not been possible for others
because of personal barriers.
Advocates for low-income families tended to urge substantial change in TANF.
Many wanted to impose more mandates on states. They wanted Congress to require states to provide
certain services to certain groups and to adopt certain procedures. Some proposed repeal of existing
ineligibility rules.
On the other hand, representatives of states and state/county welfare
departments generally wanted to keep maximum flexibility to design and operate TANF.
Among commenters on work and time limit rules, there was strong support
for allowing more education and training to be treated as work activities and for suspending the time
limit for some persons and under some circumstances.
Child care was widely seen as a necessary work support and child support as a needed
source of family income.
