CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY
POLICY BRIEF
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The No Income Epidemic and the Need to Extend the TANF Time Limit
Tashonna Perry
May 5, 2009
SWK 300 SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY
PROF. MICHAEL A. DOVER
SPRING 2009
1. GOAL STATEMENT
The past policy for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families “TANF” states that a family living in Cuyahoga County can not receive cash assistance after that family has used the allotted 36 months of cash assistance, unless the family has had a disabled child that lives within the family household. Only in the specified event above, will the family be eligible to receive the Hardship Cash Assistance for an extended 180-day period. However, in order to utilize the extended cash benefit the participating family cannot be eligible for SSI, or any other disability payments. Ironically, families that have disabled children living within their household already receive or are eligible to receive SSI, or other disability payments, which ultimately excludes them from receiving the Hardship Cash Assistance benefits. When the extended portion of cash assistance payments under the Hardship Cash Assistance program is not utilized, the funds become exempt and unavailable for participant usage, under the TANF program guidelines (to much money is being wasted). The proposed solution to this financial crisis will be to provide extended cash assistance for the allowed five year limit in the United States, to families that have no other means of income and/or fall below the poverty line, even if the extended five-year portion would be taxable to the family in need, and used as an work allowance to provide entry level services to participating agencies.
Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is an advocacy group that focuses on the basic human needs of families, by proposing alternative solutions to end poverty throughout the United States of America. CWLA has a patented quote that reads as followed: “Together, Making Children and Families a National Priority.” This quote can justify the hard work and dedication that this group has contributed. CWLA recommends that TANF time limits be suspended in a time of recession, depression or economic crisis. The time limit should at least be flexible by “stopping the clock” when a family utilizes the allotted 36-month time frame, and obtains employment. CWLA also suggest that a family should be able to “work-back” their time eligibility, as a result of working when they pass their designated 36-month transition period. These are possible solutions to our financial crisis in dealing with the “no family income” epidemic.
2. SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
The need to reform welfare has always been an issue to Congress for the last few decades. The epidemic to end poverty has always been an issue for Congress, from “The War on Poverty” proposed by President Nixon’s welfare reform “Family Assistance Plan”, to President Carter’s reform entitled “Programs for Better Jobs and Income” incorporated with the “Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981”, and the “Family Support Act of 1988, later including the “Personal Responsibility and Work Act” [PRWORA] of 1996.
The basic need to reform welfare is to provide cash assistance for needy families throughout the United States. The fight against “the war on poverty” faced a dramatic change when President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Act of 1996 (PRWORA). This Act changed the scope of helping families in need by suggesting that families should only need temporary cash assistance while gaining self-sufficiency, by proposing a new program titled “Temporary Assistance to Needy Families” (TANF) (Fischer, 2006).
TANF was perceived to benefit the population suffering from poverty by providing cash assistance for an allotted time frame of 36 months. Under the TANF provisions, federal law requires that families that utilize cash assistance must be active in some volunteer or work related activity/program for at least 30 hours per week. It was so forth ordered that any participate that received cash assistance had to obtain mandatory job training for the duration of the cash assistance period; or until employed, which ever complied the soonest (Fitzgerald, 2004). One issue with the current TANF policy, is that everyone is not employable, and all participants may not become employed after training or before the allotted time frame to receive cash assistance has expired. Other issues vary from government deficit; to the increased rates of job lose, due to the economic crisis, which accommodates nearly half of the dislocated workers’ in the United States.
The employment rates for TANF participants have declined according to information retrieved from “How to restore the American dream”(Edwards, 2007). This could easily identify many discrepancies in the mission behind the TANF program, which is designed to eliminate poverty and build self-sufficiency by obtaining employment. The impact of the TANF time limit to receive cash assistance has caused great concern for participants because not only non-working families receive cash benefits, families that earn low wages use the cash benefits to supplement their wages as well. The mission of TANF contradicts the sole purpose of its existence. It’s not a matter of producing an economy that’s productive to society by providing cash assistance to non-working families until employed, because as specified above many families work and still receive TANF to supplement their low income. The temporary approach behind TANF, which enforces a time frame to receive cash benefits, has caused more problems by limiting cash assistance to needy families, that all to often contributes to the lack of self-sufficiency, which leads to the original problem “poverty.”
3. PAST POLICY
President Johnson was the first to declare “the war on poverty” which was enacted around 1964, which shifted focus on individual proficiency rather than economic responsibility against poverty. The problem with this approach is that the theory of “work eligible families” not obtaining employment was not a contributing factor in this project, meaning that alternative guidelines and resources were not intact to serve as a safety net for needy families (June, Anne No. 17). This could definitely explain why so many families in the United States are below the poverty threshold. Studies show that nearly half of the families that “limit-out” on their cash assistance under the TANF program still remain in poverty (Fischer, C.S 1996).
The epidemic to end poverty has always been an issue to Congress, from “The War on Poverty” proposed by President Nixon’s welfare reform “Family Assistance Plan”, to President Carter’s reform entitled “Programs for Better Jobs and Income” incorporated with the “Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981”, and the “Family Support Act of 1988, later including the “Personal Responsibility and Work Act” [PRWORA] of 1996 (Figueira-McDonough, J pub. 2007). There are several community outreach programs designed to help families in need of financial assistance. “Help Me Grow” is a community outreach program that assists families in various ways. “HMG” provides “Individual Family Service Plans (IFSP)” to all participants of the program, while reviewing files I recognized a pattern of families suffering from poverty.
The information that was obtained from the “Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP)” was almost too distressing to look at because so many families had transitioned out of TANF after using their 36 months, but they had no other source of income. The IFSP identifies specific family goals and services needed in order to promote self-sufficiency. As a service coordinator, I tend to meet families with similar issues. One issue that has raised concern is the situation where a family has “no income”, and receives no “public cash assistance” for their children. Now one can argue that this situation could be avoided by obtaining employment, which is the “Blaming the Victim approach”, but I have personally found that many families were employed but recently laid-off which resulted in no income, many others were dislocated workers, and some were just unsuccessful at obtaining employment. “TANF” provides cash assistance for needy families for an allotted time frame with is only 36 months, however I’ve found that once a family utilizes those funds no additional money is available.
TANF does have a program called “Hardship Cash Assistance”, which extends funds from the allotted 36 months to an additional 180 days, however the qualifications are unlikely to pertain to the families in need. The issue arising my concern is the “no income” epidemic, which is placing families below the poverty level threshold. As a direct result of poverty, families enroll in community programs such as, “Help me Grow (HMG)” to provide emergency pampers, cribs, clothes/shoes, and bus tickets, and other household and family necessities. However HMG only has a limited supply of all items, and if our agency fails to provide adequate resources, and other referring agencies fail, then the responsibility is placed back on the needy family, which result in open cases with The Department of Children and Families Services; which usually result in children being placed into foster care until family can show financial responsibility for their family’s household. Additional funds should be extended to these families until the family can produce an adequate income towards self-sufficiency.
Programs should be eliminated or revised to meet the needs of all families. The economy plays a big part in community poverty because the government can’t guarantee a growing economy, or ongoing employment, or employment period. It becomes a question of whose fault is it really; the government, the family, or the poor structured resources within our economy. The policy in place now is “TANF” which provides 36 months of cash assistance, but “TANF” doesn’t consider families in needs for financial relief for reasons such as temporary illness, maternity, unemployment/lay-off (when not eligible for unemployment benefits), etc. If “TANF” will not be eliminated completely, and the TANF funds dispensed under reliable child support payments, and/or disability, then it should be modified to meet the needs of all families.
4. CURRENT POLICY
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is actually a block grant that was originally created by the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.” As mentioned above this project was an effort to end the war against poverty, and build self-sufficiency amount the recipients. TANF actually replaced the “Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC) program.” Welfare as we know it, has been reformed many times throughout the past decades, dating back since the early 1930’s, which only demonstrates how imporant change is needed; in the inevitable crisis on eliminate poverty and building self-sufficiency. TANF works through a federal structured program that varies from state to state. States can use the block grant in different ways to produce four designated outcomes. TANF funding will be held at the same five-year period, with state-to-state distributions on funded programs. Each state has the ability to disburse program benefits as deemed necessary.
The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is a program that advocates for needy families who receive public assistance from TANF. CWLA previously proposed that TANF benefits be revised to better meet the needs of all families that receive cash benefits. Important information was enclosed in the letter of concern to the government, the following statement was very powerful and obtained factual insight of the current problem with the TANF program, “The reauthorization of TANF should have been a platform to discuss and debate how best to address the barriers facing those still reliant on TANF as well as those who have left assistance but whose economic struggles continue. The final reauthorization focused too much on numbers while very little attention was paid to the “well -being” of families and children still reliant on TANF cash assistance and the myriad of human service programs dependent on TANF funding” (www.cwla.org). This statement clearly embraces the importance of the “well-being” of individuals that receive public assistance. The current law that governs TANF strictly allows individual states’ to dispense cash assistance for five years or less, which is ultimately at the states’ discretion. Therefore the current TANF limit is 3 years (36 months), for families to utilize the cash assistance allowance. Needy families are deprived of state eligible cash benefits after 36 months, therefore more families are under the poverty line, and unable to become self-sufficient. TANF should take a more comprehensive approach towards the assurance of “self –sufficiency” among the program eligible participants.
5. PROPOSED POLICY
The proposed policy is set to reform welfare by extending the allotted time frame participants can receive cash assistance. I’m proposing to amend the current legislation on TANF, by showing how the most recent reform only adds to the depravation and poverty that needy families face. Needy families need to utilize TANF’s cash assistance for a longer period to build self-sufficiency. It should be the choice of the caseworker and/or caretaker if the children(s) should or shouldn’t be school age before seeking training or employment, rather than the concurrent approach to immediately begin training or job search after the birth of the child, in order to receive TANF’s cash assistance. The TANF program, doesn’t consider the social welfare of human beings that may choose to wait until the children(s) are school age, and able to defend and/or talk or display noticeable signs of discomfort, abuse, and neglect.
The concept of a mother giving birth, to seeking a job, and/or becoming trained for a career within three years is bizarre and it dehumanizes every participant. The request for the United States to utilize the five-year limit would put help jump-start our economoy and generally decrease poverty. The only measuring approach for the revision of the TANF program, has been the review of the decreasing amount of overall participants receiving cash benefits, rather than the family and/or the “child –welfare” after the family has transitioned out of the 36 month period. The “outcome” of families receiving cash assistance for 36 months, should be an effective approach in monitoring self-sufficiency, while participants were on and off the program.
By measuring effectiveness of the five year extension would initiate the possible need to revise change to the current Bill H.R.4 under Title I-TANF SEC. 102 “Family Assistance Grants”(www.eac.gov). The extension would create a “down time” for mothers/ caretakers to embrace before seeking employment and/or training. This “down time” would be helpful for caretakers to gather thoughts, health, and most importantly a comfort zone for children(s) to enter preschool and/or an educational setting. I would like to propose a modification (an extension) of “TANF” cash assistance, to make it easier for families to receive cash assistance if in financial merit after a family has utilized their 36 months of assistance.