You would think that the conservatives and moderates who gave us welfare reform in 1996 would be absolutely crowing about their achievement: welfare rolls cut by more than half; many women not just quitting welfare but increasing their education and improving earnings and lives.
You'd also think the Bush administration would want to build on this success, especially given its widely advertised commitment to "leave no child behind." But, no.
Instead, the administration's new welfare reform bill is punitive and mean-spirited. The bill passed the Republican House May 16, and comes before the Senate Finance Committee this week.
The administration, against the advice of most Republican governors, wants both to tighten the screws and limit the funds. Specifically, the bill requires most mothers receiving benefits to work a full forty-hours in paid employment.
This requirement would make it impossible for most low-income single mothers to take classes or participate in training programs -- the very strategies that have allowed many to escape the cycle of poverty. And it would make caseworkers spend less time helping people find jobs and more time tracking job attendance. Even more than under the present law, mothers who stayed home with a sick child would be penalized.
When welfare reform took effect in 1997, many governors initially pursued a strategy of "work first": Participants had to take a job -- any job. Many failed. Practical experience soon showed that it made more sense to allow welfare mothers work part time and get training or high school diplomas or even college degrees -- and then to succeed in employment.
The 1996 law also allowed states great flexibility. But the new legislation adds several federal mandates that will impede these creative efforts -- including one requirement that $300 million of scarce federal dollars be devoted to marriage promotion.
We're about to squander a lot of progress.
By 1996, both liberals and conservatives knew that it was time to end AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children.) Everyone hated the old welfare program -- recipients, caseworkers, taxpayers. It wasn't ending poverty. It had all the wrong incentives. It failed to reward work. It was a bureaucratic nightmare.
After several false starts, it fell to a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, to vow that he would "end welfare as we know it." Clinton, however, wanted the new program to offer ladders to a better life. But a Republican Congress, in 1996, gave Clinton a much more punitive reform than he wanted -- just cut the rolls and stop coddling the poor. Clinton vetoed the legislation twice before finally signing a somewhat more moderate compromise.
The sponsors of welfare reform also got very lucky. The new program coincided with a long economic boom. That meant jobs existed for women coming off welfare. The boom also generated surpluses in state welfare accounts -- money that states creatively used for such work supports as child care, job training, education, and wage subsidies. The boom compensated for much of the stinginess in the 1996 program.
Further, Congress had expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit -- an additional subsidy for all low income parents in paid work. In this climate, welfare reform could be a policy success for large numbers of families, even though many still fell through the cracks.
The new welfare law is unlikely to face such a favorable economic climate. Most states now face huge budget shortfalls. Caseloads are rising again. The money for the programs that provided the work supports -- the training and the child care -- is drying up.
Child care, of course, is a key link in the whole policy chain. It's necessary, not just to enable mothers of small children to work, but to provide the extra enrichment that kids from very poor single-parent families need to succeed at school.
But nearly all the child care available to women coming off welfare is merely custodial. Much of it is in substandard facilities. And the states no longer have the spare funds to subsidize what the federal welfare block grant lacks. Despite the increased need, however, the Administration refuses to provide increased child care funding.
Millions of poor single mothers want to join the paid workforce without sacrificing their children. It's in all of our interest to help the next generation break the cycle of dependency and poverty.
With its present welfare approach, it's hard to take seriously the Administration's rhetorical commitment to "leave no child behind." The Senate now has a last chance do welfare reform properly.
