The House of Representatives has passed the Personal Responsibility, Work and Family Protection Act of 2003 (H.R. 4) by a vote of 230 to 192. The measure would reauthorize current welfare reform law, generally referred to as “TANF.”
The new bill, passed on Feb. 13, is essentially the same as the one the House passed last year, which NACo opposed because of its increased work requirements, insufficient funding for child-care, reduced flexibility, and lack of any funding for the Social Services Block Grant or health care for legal immigrants.
The bill still has the 40-hour work requirement (24 hours of direct work activities and 16 hours of allowable activities). The activities considered direct work would be reduced to six activities. Child-care funding would also be the same as in last year’s bill. Discretionary spending would begin at $2.1 billion in FY04 and increases $200 million a year until it reaches $3.1 billion in FY08. Entitlement funding would increase from the current $2.7 billion to $2.95 billion a year.
The bill still has the superwaiver provisions for workforce development and some housing. The bill does, however, continue to exempt the local workforce development governance structure from the superwaiver authority. It also still has the demonstration programs for a food stamp block grant. Additionally, the bill has the mandatory participation of the TANF program in the one-stop system unless a state’s governor opts out of the mandate.
As before, the bill does not contain any language that would give states the option to cover newly arrived legal immigrants under TANF, Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Program. Under current law, legal immigrants who arrive in the United States after Aug. 22 must wait five years to be eligible for federal assistance.
The bill also fails to increase the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG),which is currently funded at $1.7 billion, but was scheduled to increase to $2.8 billion in the 1996 welfare reform law. The bill does, however, permanently reinstate the state authority to transfer 10 percent of TANF funds to SSBG. The funding and transfer authority was reduced years ago to help pay for the Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21).
Changes from the previous proposal
The bill has three significant changes from last year’s proposal. The elimination of the separate two-parent family participation rate would be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2002. Under current law, there is a higher participation rate for two-parent families and the single-parent rate is 30 percent. The bill would have a new rate beginning at 50 percent in FY04 and increasing to 70 percent in FY08.
Under last year’s bill, families that fail to comply with state requirements for more than two months would lose all cash assistance. There was also an exemption for those states that had constitutional or statutory requirements prior to 1966 that counties provide assistance to needy families and children. That exemption will now be limited to one year. This exemption only affects counties in California and New York.
A third change is that the new family promotion grants would be available this fiscal year. Under this new program, the federal program would make competitive grants to states to promote healthy marriages. The grant program would be funded at $100 million a year and states would have to match it another $100 million.
