Another Bush Attack on America’s Poor

by Mike Hall, Jun 29, 2006

The Bush administration issued new rules that could make it harder for states to serve people struggling to move from welfare to work. All but two states have met the 1996 federal welfare rules requiring states to move at least half of welfare recipients into work or training programs by Oct. 1. But the new Bush rules set stringent requirements on what constitutes “work” and “training,” and may stifle the state innovation that has reduced the number of welfare recipients from 12.2 million to 4.4 million today.

Meanwhile, Bush’s fiscal year 2007 budget….

Sheri Steisel, director of human services policy for the National Conference of State Legislatures, told the Associated Press:

Every state’s economy is different, and states are dealing with different challenges among the welfare recipients that remain on the caseload.

Jennifer Noyes, with the Institute for Research on Poverty, said on NPR’s “Marketplace” the new rules could cripple states’ flexibility:

Part of the beauty of TANF has been that every state could take the block grant and implement within its local situation. My biggest concern would be that in response to some of those states that maybe have not done as well, that these regulations might tighten things up way too much.

If the states don’t meet the work and training goals under the new rules, they will lose 5 percent of their federal welfare funding in the first year and as much as 21 percent if they continue to fall behind the federal targets.

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