The big change in the current welfare program Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)was the establishment of time limits and the addition of a work requirement. With some exceptions, individuals can only receive welfare benefits for a total of five years in their lifetime. TANF also requires single moms to leave welfare for work. But it gave states new flexibility in funding childcare, job training and other programs to help people meet the new goals. It expires on October 1, 2002.

As that date approaches, child advocacy groups hope Congress will be sympathetic to low-wage parents struggling to enter the labor market in a recession. What can advocates hope to change, and what is most likely to remain the same?

Should Ending Poverty Be a Goal of Welfare Reform?
The Children's Defense Fund has banded together with low-income advocacy groups to argue that reducing poverty should be a stated goal of the welfare reform bill. Right now, the goal is simply to move people from welfare to paying work. The advocates argue that this emphasis pushes parents into dead-end, low-wage jobs that keep families in poverty.

One way to encourage states to help individuals land higher-wage jobs would be for Congress to require states to document how many of those leaving welfare are also leaving poverty. States that succeed in moving higher percentages of former recipients into jobs that pay a living wage could receive bonuses. Supporters argue that states would then be encouraged to spend more on education and job-training programs.

Similarly, the groups will be pushing Congress to be more flexible in allowing schooling and training to count towards a welfare recipient's work requirement, arguing that better-educated workers earn more. Currently, the law limits welfare recipients to one year of vocational training. Advocates for welfare families argue that other types of education should also count as work: college, basic literacy classes, high school completion courses, for example.

But this effort will face tough opposition from Republicans. "Virtually none of these [job-training] programs have been shown to work,'' contends Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Haskins helped write the 1996 welfare reform law as former chief welfare advisor to Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans point out that child poverty rates have fallen since the welfare reform act was passed. Low-income advocates counter that the number of children in poverty has not declined as much as the number of poor families receiving welfare checks has declined—meaning that for some former welfare families, income from paid work is not enough to lift them out of poverty.

A Fight Over Money
Rising joblessness and homelessness could also give Democrats more ammunition in their fight to increase TANF's basic $16.5 billion annual block grant to states. Most states experienced rises in welfare caseloads between March 2001, when the recession is believed to have started, and September 2001, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy, which advocates more generous welfare policy.

President Bush has called for flat funding—no cuts, no increases for inflation—for TANF. Some Republicans in Congress argue that the funding should be cut, since welfare caseloads have dropped to half of their 1994 peak. The National Governors Association (NGA) and child advocacy groups support increasing TANF funding to account for inflation.

Bigger caseloads could force many states to cut programs aimed at helping families gain economic independence after leaving welfare, according to Gretchen Odegard, NGA's legislative director for human services. Those programs expanded enormously when caseloads were falling, thanks to new flexibility permitted by the 1996 law. For instance, among six mid-western states, work supports like child care and transportation subsidies accounted for less than a third of the states' welfare expenditures before reform; now, nearly 70 percent of the money goes to such programs.

Time Limits Hit Home
Because time limits on welfare benefits were a cornerstone of the 1996 welfare reform bill, it's unlikely they will be abolished. But some advocates for children are hoping Congress will ease time limits for parents who are working but earning so little they still qualify for public assistance.

These groups will also argue that there should be special exemptions for some parents, such as those caring for a chronically sick child or an infant at home. (Approximately one-third of states require welfare mothers to go to work before a child turns one.)

"I think the country and the Congress are beginning to give time limits a second look," says Deepak Bhargava, director of the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, a coalition of 1,000 community groups. "The 5-year lifetime limit is hitting at precisely the time when the labor market is beleaguered."

Stop the Clock for Welfare Mothers Starting Work
The National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support and other advocacy groups are proposing that the government "stop the clock" on time limits for those who are working or participating in job training so that they can still receive welfare benefits to supplement their income.

Children whose parents participated in experimental welfare-to-work programs performed better in school if their parents received income supplements to their wages, these advocates note. (See the Connect for Kids article, Life in a Post-Welfare World)

Meanwhile, analysis by the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) found that welfare-to-work programs that reduced families' incomes produced mostly negative effects on children's behavior and emotional well-being "We need protections because we can hurt children [through reduced incomes] and we don't want to," says Deborah Weinstein, director of the family income division at CDF, which supports the proposal.

The stop-the-clock idea may be persuasive enough to Republicans to pass Congress, says Haskins. "The main goal of welfare reform is to make sure people work, so a lot of people think this would be a reasonable approach and would allow states to use TANF as an income subsidy," Haskins says.

Child Care
The key debate over the major welfare programs affecting children will still turn on the basic issue of how much money Congress is willing to spend. First and foremost are child care subsidies for low-income families. Last year, states spent almost a quarter of their TANF funds on child-care subsidies, about $3.9 billion. That was made possible by the drop in welfare caseloads.

But those child care funds could dry up as more jobless families need help, according to Mark Greenberg, a senior attorney with the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C. "It's a terrible choice to have to cut child care for working families in order to respond to the needs of families who lost jobs in the recession," he says.

"We still have long waiting lists for day care, the average child care worker is being paid low rates so parents can't get quality child care, and 31 states require no training before a worker can work in child care centers," says Helen Blank of the Children's Defense Fund. "We're not where we need to be in terms of families' access to quality child care."

Republicans are unlikely to support any big increase in funds for child care. Republicans can argue, ?When we drafted TANF, we allowed states to transfer TANF dollars to child care, they're doing it and the system's working real well,'" Haskins says.

Immigrants
One in five low-wage workers is an immigrant and a high proportion of children in poverty live in immigrant families. The 1996 welfare reform law denied welfare benefits to most immigrants entering the country after 1996. The National Council for La Raza, an advocacy group for Hispanic Americans, argues that benefits should be restored to legal immigrants. "They're the only taxpayers here denied basic safety net services," says La Raza Policy Analyst Marcela Urrutia.

Republicans have traditionally argued against including immigrants on the grounds that welfare programs would become a magnet. Urrutia counters: "Studies have shown immigrants come here for work. Immigrants don't go to states with the highest level of welfare benefits. They go to the states with the jobs."

But a full-scale extension of benefits would be costly.

"I think it will become more of a dollar issue than a philosophical issue," Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, which is charged with considering welfare reform, said at a recent Brookings forum.

President George W. Bush announced in early January his support for restoring food stamp benefits to immigrants. Advocates for immigrants, cheered by Bush's action, say they will also push for restoration of other benefits like Medicaid and child health insurance.

Child Support
There are signs that at least modest changes will be made in the law, to allow former welfare recipients to receive a larger share of child support payments from absent fathers. President Bush's 2003 budget proposal would give states the option of passing through up to $100 per month in such payments directly to families. Under current law, the state and federal governments usually retain all of a father's child-support payments while mothers are on welfare and about half the payments after mothers leave welfare.

Some would like to require states to pass through the payments, and in higher amounts than $100 per month. "We'd like to see child support go to the mother, whether the mother is on welfare or not," says Joan Entmacher, vice-president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., a women's rights group.

But the states oppose making a mandatory program, because some state governments depend on those funds to run their child support collection and disbursement systems, according to NGA's Odegard. "Some state [child support collection] systems are in jeopardy of falling apart" under a mandate, she says. Other states retain child support funds to support their overall welfare system.

Marriage
Promoting marriage and reducing out-of-wedlock pregnancies were among the key goals of the 1996 law. The state of West Virginia adds a $100 marriage incentive to the monthly welfare benefit of any family that includes a legally married man and woman living together.

It's likely that participants in the reauthorization debate will continue the sometimes fierce discussion over whether and how federal government policies should be crafted to affect people's decisions to marry or not. But it's less clear that any consensus will emerge. Many liberals agree that, all else being equal, two-parent families are better for children. However, they argue that we don't have much information about how to promote that particular outcome through policy.