WELFARE REFORM : Don't forget the poor.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a landmark welfare reform bill to fulfill his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." For decades, the country's safety net for low-income families with children had been debated and often disparaged as a program that fostered dependency and laziness among those at the economic bottom. The 1996 bill, the Personal Responsibility and Reconciliation Act, was designed to put an end to dependence on the system and send recipients to work.

The bill replaced the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), ending the sixty-year commitment to provide cash assistance to people living in poverty. Under AFDC, families were entitled to assistance based solely on need. Under TANF, however, states were provided with fixed "block" grants that were not determined by the number of people who needed assistance. Instead, recipients had to fulfill work requirements and others to receive benefits, and were restricted to a five-year lifetime limit. States were given wide latitude to design their own TANF programs but were also required to move at least half of adult TANF recipients into jobs by 2002.

Now, six years later, TANF is up for review and reauthorization. TANF continues to be controversial: some proclaim welfare reform a resounding success while others point to continued high poverty rates as an indication that reform failed to help those most in need. In reality, TANF did what it set out to do: reduce the number of people receiving benefits. Welfare caseloads dropped by 60 percent between 1994 and 2001, though at least half the drop can be attributed to the strong economy of the late 1990s. Many former welfare recipients did move from welfare to work. In mid-2001, about one-third of former welfare recipients had full-time employment and another 16 percent worked part time.

Despite the dramatic drop in caseloads and the significant rates of employment among former recipients, another reality persists: poverty in the United States has not declined. Many welfare recipients were pushed into the first available job without adequate support for childcare, medical coverage, and transportation assistance. Those who did move from welfare to work earn an average of $12,000 to $15,000 a year, leaving families mired in poverty. Most former recipients have limited skills and education, and many were not able to find work that would last--by one estimate, nearly a third of those who left welfare for work have since lost their jobs.

Since the recession began in March 2001, situations have worsened. In thirty-three states, caseloads began to increase and are now up by 10 percent in Arizona, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and South Carolina. Food banks and soup kitchens have seen a marked increase in the number of people in need of emergency assistance. In addition, many welfare recipients find themselves out of time--their five-year lifetime limit on benefits, set in 1996, has run out.

Early in 2002, Congress began debating the merits and pitfalls of the TANF program in order to meet a September 30 renewal deadline. In fact, by mid-May the House of Representatives had already passed its TANF reauthorization bill. Throughout the debate, religious and antipoverty groups--such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, major Protestant denominations, and Bread for the World--have been urging Congress to adopt provisions to strengthen TANF. While there is not universal agreement even among these groups as to what is most needed (there are diverse opinions as to the government's role in the promotion of marriage, for example), they have found common ground in seeking improvements to reduce poverty.

A starting point would be to add the reduction of poverty to TANF's mandate. If that were a goal, TANF would have to encourage states to create programs that address the specific needs of recipients by assessing their strengths and the barriers to self-sufficiency, and by providing them with tools to succeed in the workforce. The federal government would also reward states with performance bonuses based in part on lower poverty rates.

TANF could also help reduce poverty by increasing opportunities for education and training. By expanding opportunities for job skills, specifically by allowing postsecondary education and training to count as an acceptable work activity, recipients could qualify for jobs that would pay enough to feed their families.

Unfortunately, the House bill that passed on May 16 is long on requirements and short on funding. It requires states to move 70 percent of TANF recipients into jobs by 2007, and to increase work hours from thirty to forty per week. While these may seem admirable goals, they are not bolstered by increases in childcare and transportation supports. Nor does the House bill increase funding for TANF, despite inflation and budget shortfalls in forty-three states.

Even more troubling, the House Republican leadership included in the bill a surprise "superwaiver" provision that will allow a few states to replace other "entitlement" programs--like food stamps--with nonentitlement block grants, modeled on the current welfare program. Proponents say that TANF programs have worked so well that states should also be allowed to develop their own programs to replace food stamps, housing, and several other benefit programs for poor people. But critics argue that by removing the entitlement status, especially from food stamps, many individuals will no longer receive desperately needed benefits. The House bill, however, does include provisions about poverty reduction and self-sufficiency planning intended to help welfare recipients better prepare for a future free from poverty.

Meanwhile, the Senate is seeking bipartisan compromise on TANF reauthorization. For now, the Senate seems likely to balk at the superwaiver proposal, to approve additional funding for childcare, and to push for more opportunity for TANF recipients to get job training and education. Differences between the House and Senate bills will be ironed out in a conference committee. The superwaiver proposal will be among the most contentious issues. With bipartisan cooperation in the Senate and continued pressure from advocacy groups, TANF reauthorization may yet benefit those working their way out of poverty.

David Beckmann, a Lutheran pastor, is president of Bread for the World (www.bread.org).