Congress returned from its Easter recess on April 9 and wasted no time before having three hearings on welfare reauthorization. The first hearing, held on the very day recess ended, was by the House Education and Workforce Committee on "Working Toward Independence: the Administration’s Plan to Build upon the Successes of Welfare Reform." Testimony was heard from Secretary Tommy Thompson, Department of Health and Human Services; Wendell Primus, Director of Income Security, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and Jason Turner, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former welfare reform director in New York and Wisconsin.

The Alliance submitted testimony for the record to Committee Chairman, Representative John Boehner (R-OH), and the full committee prior to the hearing and listed several recommendations to help families achieve self-sufficiency, including:

• Ensure that the definition of work includes job training and post-secondary education;
• Recognize that child care is an essential work support by increasing funding to the Child Care Development Fund to expand the number of children served and improving the quality of care.
• Provide incentives to the states to tailor job training, job placement and job retention strategies to the multiple and diverse talents and needs of the participants;
• Ask the states to keep track of their former recipients and provide follow-up job assistance and assessments to ensure that the workers and their families are on the path to leaving poverty, not just off the welfare rolls;
• Establish new temporary waivers that "stop the clock" for recipients who cannot meet work or looking-for-work mandates:
• When chronic physical and mental health conditions of the recipients and their children temporarily prevent them from working;
• When childcare, domestic violence, housing or transportation emergencies temporarily prevent them from working;
• When unemployment is high or when available jobs require advanced skills that the welfare recipient has neither the talents nor training to qualify for these positions.

On April 10, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on "Issues in TANF Reauthorization: Requiring and Supporting Work" and witnesses represented Catholic Social Services, Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP), General Accounting Office and Save-a-Lot, Lindenhurst, IL. The star witnesses were Governors John Engler of Michigan and Howard Dean of Vermont, who submitted a joint statement on behalf of the National Governors Association in addition to their individual testimony. Governor Dean’s written testimony stated that the Administration’s proposed work requirements would significantly erode the primary focus of TANF - to increase state flexibility to design programs to meet the four objectives of the law.

In a recent survey conducted by the National Governors Association and the American Public Human Services Association, 41 states (out of 47) indicated that the Administration’s proposal would require them to make fundamental changes to their state welfare reform strategies and/or redirect resources. Thirty states (out of 32) estimated that their annual child care expenditures would increase more than $770 million.

The following day, the Way and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources heard from over 40 witnesses, including six members of the House - Marcy Kaptur (D-OH); Dennis Kucinich (D-OH); Barbara Lee (D-CA); Patsy Mink (D-HI); Thomas Reynolds (R-NY); and John Tierney (D-MA). The Honorable Martin O’Malley, Mayor of Baltimore, who testified on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayor, urged the committee to consider additional funding for the Child Care Development Fund. New York Senator, Raymond Meier, testified that while New York currently has a 70% work participation rate, they would not meet the Administration’s requirement of universal engagement.

A full committee markup of the bill is expected in late April in an effort to have a floor vote in May.