Statement of Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark, NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, is a membership organization made up of more than 11,000 groups and individuals, many of them faith-based social service providers. Our mission is to educate, lobby and organize to influence the formation of federal legislation to promote economic and social justice.

In 1996, soon after its signing, NETWORK initiated a multi-year, nationwide study  to examine the effects of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Responsibility Act on people living in poverty. Almost 4,000 patrons of soup kitchens, health clinics and other private, primarily faith-based social service facilities were interviewed during three separate surveys. Results of the first two surveys, conducted in 1997 and 1998, were published in the 1999 report, Poverty Amid Plenty: The Unfinished Business of Welfare Reform. Results of the third survey, conducted from November 2000 through January 2001, appeared in Welfare Reform: How Do We Define Success?, a report that was released at a Capitol briefing in July 2001.

The study has shown that a significant number of current and former welfare recipients with incomes both below and above the poverty line are unable to meet their most basic needs. As a result, many turn to emergency facilities to provide for themselves and their families.

During the most recent survey, we found that almost half of those we interviewed in emergency facilities had household yearly incomes under $8,500, while 30 percent lived on less than $6,000. Sadly, roughly two-thirds of these desperately poor families included children. Despite their extreme poverty, only 28 percent of these families received government cash assistance.

We also found welfare reform “successes” –  people with jobs who had moved above the poverty line  –  in our soup kitchens and other emergency facilities. Fully one-third of those we surveyed came from households with incomes that exceed the federal poverty income level, and three-quarters of this group had at one time been on welfare. Why are they relying on emergency services? Mostly because of lost benefits and inadequate wages. Also, a shortage of affordable housing means that housing costs consume a high percentage of their earnings.

NETWORK believes that the ultimate test of the success of welfare reform is whether welfare-to-work families are able to achieve independence and a secure future. This requires job training, childcare, education and other supports such as transportation, stable housing, addiction treatment, domestic violence protection and counseling.

We are concerned that the Administration’s TANF proposal makes it difficult for states to do much more than provide inexpensive, short-term services to people who need much more. By mandating that more people be engaged in some kind of “work activity” while not boosting funding to provide the support they need, the proposal forces states to do more with less.

We also worry that the current proposal is more restrictive concerning the types of education and job training that are allowed. For example, the limiting of training activities to three months within a 24 month period rules out post-secondary education. To make matters worse, the President is also calling for cuts in federal funding of job training programs for low-income adults. 

One of the most difficult aspects of the 1996 legislation was the instituting of time limits. Like many groups, NETWORK found these new restrictions arbitrary and inherently unfair. Recognizing the low political likelihood that time limits will be abolished this year, NETWORK supports a number of measures to lessen the suffering they cause. These include:

1. Redefining work. This means stopping the time clock for people who play by the rules,  people, for example, who are:

• actively looking for a job
• enrolled in job training classes
• attending school
• caring for children under the age of six
• unable to find quality, affordable child care for their children
• employed but not earning a living wage.

2. Increasing the percentage of families who receive extended time limits, currently limited to 20 percent of a state’s average caseload. NETWORK supports increasing it to at least 20 percent of the state’s caseload when welfare reform was enacted in 1996, a larger number.

More generally, welfare-to-work families need all the tools necessary to achieve long-term self-sufficiency – a living wage, health care, affordable housing, transportation, daycare, training, and education. States need appropriate levels of funding and flexible requirements to provide for these families.

The welfare reform reauthorization process provides Congress with an important opportunity to take concrete steps to lift millions of people out of poverty by providing the tools they need to become independent. The people of the U.S., acting out of compassion, hastened to provide assistance to the victims of September 11. We have cared for the victims of the terrorist attacks. It is now time for Congress to extend that caring to people who struggle in poverty each day.