Obama Ends Welfare Reform As We Know It



This afternoon, President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive undermining the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that have been the foundation of that law - one of the most successful domestic policy reforms in the 20th century.

Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The underlying concept of welfare reform was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.

The welfare reform law was very successful. In the four decades prior to welfare reform, the welfare caseload never experienced a significant decline. But, in the four years after welfare reform, the caseload dropped by nearly half. Employment surged and child poverty among blacks and single mothers plummeted to historic lows. What was the catalyst for these improvements? Rigorous new federal work requirements contained in TANF.

Contrary to some perceptions, the formula that made welfare reform a success was not giving state governments more flexibility in operating federally funded welfare programs. The active ingredient that made the difference was requiring state governments to implement those rigorous new federal work standards.

Today the Obama administration issued a dramatic new directive stating that the traditional TANF work requirements will be waived or overridden by a legal device called a section 1115 waiver authority under the Social Security law (42 U.S.C. 1315).

Section 1115 allows HHS to "waive compliance" with specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: All provisions of law that can be overridden under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself.

The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, "mandatory work requirements"). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, is deliberately not listed in section 1115; its provisions cannot be waived. Obviously, if the Congress had wanted HHS to be able to waive the TANF work requirements laid out in section 407, it would have listed that section as waivable under section 1115. It did not do that.

In the past, state bureaucrats have attempted to define activities such as hula dancing, attending Weight Watchers, and bed rest as "work." Welfare reform instituted work standards to block these dodges. Now that the Obama administration has abolished those standards, we can expect "work" in the TANF program to mean anything but work.

Obama's new welfare decree guts sound anti-poverty policy. The administration tramples on the actual legislation passed by Congress and seeks to impose its own policy choices - a pattern that has become all too common in this administration.

The result is the end of welfare reform as we know it.

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1 comment:

  1. They wasnt giving jobs to blacks. To our children. It was a reform tht only spoke to a already educated people. An not non experience communities, Surnames, Backgrounds, etc. The evil is good an wht seems good is certainly a lie. This today we knw. The block grant isnt negotiable. It already has a formula. These reforms ment..someone needed more money for war, an instead of taking it frm their bank accounts or the budget for such things, they'll take it frm the mouths of black children. Oh, thts rt there is no budget. An welfar "fairwell" isnt because blacks are lazy. Its because they havnt educated blacks to be builders again. If our inheritance hadnt been stolen, and hidden in other peoples accounts, homes, LAND, BLOOD,etc we'd have a say so also. But its all hidden behind a false language an culture. And government. Today the problem isnt the poor, for the poor has survived..today its the rich. You have to be controlled and tht is all today means. Your numbers dnt add uo..your stories dnt match..ppl an relatiinships are dead. Your mindset is about to ve cleanes. You will be ok soon. An this workd will be bettr for all GODS children of every COLOR.

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