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Legislation & Politics | ||
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)BackgroundThe Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides last resort temporary cash assistance, child care, medical assistance, some education and training, and other services for families where parents cannot earn enough to support themselves and their children. Originally enacted in 1996, it expired in 2002, and has been extended 11 times since then through a series of short term extensions. A full reauthorization of the TANF program has been unable to clear the Congress because of the ideologically driven and punitive approach of the Bush Administration and its allies. Summary of legislationThe Bush Administration's TANF recommendations have been incorporated into legislation in the House of Representatives for the last three years. They would tighten TANF work requirements, forcing states to run expensive unpaid workfare programs and to shrink the number of families in their programs each year. At the same time, they lack adequate child care funding and they keep the TANF block grant funded at the same level it was almost 10 years ago. The legislation requires TANF participants, even single mothers with children under six years of age, to work 40 hours per week. Meanwhile, states would have to have 70 percent of their caseload in work activities without the resources needed to support these programs. The legislation forces states to abandon programs that blend work, education, training and job search in favor of a very narrow set of work activities. In addition, the bill includes block grant and "superwaiver" provisions that would eliminate public administration requirements in the food stamp program and employment services and allow governors to overturn federal laws. AFSCME positionAFSCME is strongly opposed to the TANF legislation that the House of Representatives is expected to push through the Congress this fall. AFSCME will be working hard to block this effort and to ensure reasonable requirements and resources in any legislation that is adopted. AFSCME believes that realistic work hour requirements in the TANF program need to be maintained. States must be allowed the flexibility to blend work, education training and job search to tailor programs to meet the individual needs of TANF participants. Strict limitations on education and job skills training would result in overly prescriptive federal policy, force states to establish large-scale, costly "workfare" programs, and deprive TANF recipients of the tools they need to secure jobs paying family supporting wages. We have seen in New York City that large workfare programs place enormous pressure on public agencies and other employers to replace their current workers with unpaid workfare workers. The anti-displacement protections in TANF need to be strengthened to protect workers from being replaced by workfare participants. Moreover, all workplace laws, including minimum wage and health and safety, should apply to TANF recipients in workfare assignments. Child care funding needs to be increased to ensure that children are in safe environments while their parents are working or engaged in other activities. This is particularly important if a larger percentage of TANF parents are required to participate in work activities for more hours each week. Finally, structural changes to programs such as the food stamp program that would end the federal guarantee of a basic level of nutritional assistance for those who are too poor to provide it themselves should be strongly rejected. Requirements for public administration of various federal programs are necessary for accountability for the use of the funds and should be rejected also. What you can doContact your Senators and Representative and let them know you oppose the Bush Administration's TANF reform efforts. Department of Legislation |
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