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Committee on Ways and Means For Immediate Release Welfare Reform Countdown: 7 Days Until Expiration Senate failure to act jeopardizes progress on reducing poverty WASHINGTON - With only seven days until the expiration of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), the successful 1996 welfare reform program, the Democrat-led Senate has still not scheduled a vote for reauthorization. The ’96 welfare reform law lowered the number of people in poverty by astonishing amounts, including lifting three million children out of poverty, and the number of black children in poverty and children living with single mothers in poverty is at a record low. The welfare bill passed by the House on May 16, 2002 would build on past successes by specifying that reducing poverty is a key purpose of the welfare program. Sadly, unless the Senate chooses to act on this legislation, the positive reforms of the ’96 law are at risk of unraveling. “ Welfare reform has been a spectacular success, including lifting nearly 3 million children from poverty,” said Wally Herger (R-CA), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee. “But there is more work to do, and that’s why the House-passed welfare bill focuses on reducing poverty even more.”Herger continued, “Yet in the four months since the House passed this measure, not only has the Senate not acted, but the leading Senate bill fails to even mention reducing poverty as a program purpose. It’s now up to the Senate to help others help themselves by promoting more work, less welfare dependence, and less poverty, as the House bill does.” According to a widely-cited July 1996 “study” by the Urban Institute, “about 1.1 million more children would be moved into poverty,” under the 1996 welfare reform law. Despite this dire prediction, according to the Census Bureau, overall child poverty rates are at their lowest levels since the 1970s. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families will expire on September 30, 2002. To find more information on the successful 1996 legislation, as well as what the House has done to continue to strengthen this program, please click on the link for a copy of the Welfare Resource Kit. |