With the number of job openings remaining at a high of 6.9 million, the Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits and Services (JOBS) for Success Act (H.R. 5861) is more important than ever.
This bill, led by Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith (R-NE), refocuses the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program on work to move more Americans off of the sidelines and into the workforce, where they are greatly needed.
Here is what leaders and groups from across the country are saying in support of this bold and needed welfare reform legislation:
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House during the 1996 Welfare Reforms
“The [JOBS for Success Act]… would help our country meet the demands of the growing economy by putting in place popular reforms that will help get millions of Americans out of dependency and back to work. The JOBS for Success Act would reinvigorate and expand reforms that we put in place when I was speaker of the House. Those reforms were wildly successful and led to the greatest number of children leaving poverty in American history.”
National Association of Manufacturers
“The JOBS for Success Act creates new opportunities for people left behind to join the 21st-century manufacturing workforce. This legislation will help us upskill more Americans for the new-collar jobs of the future, provide the dignity of work along with the necessary wraparound social services to support people at work and enhance the talents of those who are unemployed or underemployed by allowing them to find meaningful career paths in a rapidly changing and evolving economy.”
“The JOBS for Success Act ensures that funds are responsibly used for the purpose this money is intended for. Reforming TANF will build on the success of tax reform by promoting upward mobility so that Americans can get a job and keep their job.”
Opportunity America Jobs and Careers Coalition
“We applaud the way the JOBS for Success Act overhauls TANF to restore its emphasis on work, and we hold out hope that the bill will succeed in creating new, more effective oversight and incentives for states, remedying a long-term decline in state efforts to help needy parents get back to the world of work.”
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
“The timing is right for these reforms amid a 3.8% jobless rate and worker shortages across the country. Paying people to make it easy not to work—and thus languish for a lifetime in poverty—is not compassionate. It’s destructive of human dignity and leads to more inequality. Republicans are right that welfare reform will assist American upward mobility, and they should take the case to the public.”
California Workforce Association
“The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Reauthorization effort is especially critical for workforce development boards with unemployment at historic lows because the boards are serving increasing numbers of TANF recipients. These individuals WANT to work but have several significant barriers to employment such as not having a high school diploma, long-term unemployment, child care issues, lack of access to transportation, criminal records, substance abuse/mental health issues, and lack of access to food, among others.”
CLICK HERE to learn more about the JOBS for Success Act.