TANF: what went wrong and what to do next.

Lens, Vicki

In 1996, as public sentiment against women on welfare reached a crescendo, the federal government eliminated the 60-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and replaced it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). To many, the debate over welfare was settled with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) (P.L. 104193) creating the TANF program, and both legislators and the public have heralded the law as a success. However, for the women affected, it is increasingly becoming clear that TANF is not the panacea for poverty its supporters have claimed. Low-income women with children are eligible for only temporary financial assistance for five years over their lifetimes, and only if they work in exchange for their benefits.

This article examines the assumption that TANF is working as intended, drawing on the accumulated evidence that is now being gathered by both individual states and independent researchers on the effects of TANF on dependency. How obstacles to work, including transportation and day care, have been approached under TANF and whether the approach is working for some of the more vulnerable groups of poor women are examined also. Finally, TANF's true effect on the lives of poor women and their children, and what changes are necessary and attainable to protect these families from further harm, are explored. Understanding TANF's failures is especially important for social workers, who are among the few in our society that profess a professional commitment to helping people who are poor. Despite this, social workers, along with other advocates, were largely left out of the debate that resulted in the enactment of PRWORA. Indeed, the absence of such voices was so conspicuous that even elected officials complained that there was "very little mail, very few phone calls, and only muted lobbying on behalf of their position" (Havemann, 1995, p. Al1). When advocates were not being ignored, they often were attacked as obstructionists attempting to maintain the status quo. One newspaper headline decried that "social workers could undermine welfare reform" and noted that NASW had "opposed all efforts to trim welfare benefits and to require work" (Payne, 1996, p. A16). As the debate now switches from enactment to implementation and effect, it is essential that social workers enter the discussion fully armed with realistic proposals for modifications in TANF and the knowledge and information needed to sway policymakers to make the necessary changes.

Is TANF Working?

Has TANF Resulted in Self-Sufficiency for Welfare Mothers?

TANF was proclaimed a success only a few years after its implementation and even before one of its harshest provisions, the five-year time limit, took effect. As proof, its supporters pointed to the nearly 40 percent decrease in the number of welfare recipients, from 13.6 million in 1995, the year before TANF was passed, to 8.9 million recipients in 1998 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 1999d). However, simply counting the number of people who have left the welfare rolls is only part of the story. Two questions remain: Did TANF cause the decrease and, if it did, did these former recipients actually achieve TANF's stated goal of self-sufficiency?

Determining the answer to these questions is complicated and requires teasing out the effects of the economy and what we know about patterns of welfare use. The advent of TANF coincided with a period of unusual prosperity and growth in the United States. Welfare rolls always decrease during times of economic expansion because, put simply, the more jobs that are available, the more opportunities there are for poor women to work. That is exactly what appears to have happened beginning in 1994, two years before the passage of TANF--as the economy grew, the number of people receiving welfare decreased from 14.2 million in 1994 to 12.6 million in 1996 (DHHS, 1999b). The Council of Economic Advisors (1997) attributed as much as 31 percent to 45 percent of this decline in the welfare rolls between 1994 and 1996 to economic expansion, although acknowledging that in some states with work programs, such as Oregon and Wisconsin, welfare reform did contribute somewhat to caseload declines.

That many recipients leave welfare for work when there are jobs available is also consistent with studies of welfare use. Despite the assumptions underlying TANF that welfare recipients need to be prodded to work, work is quite common among welfare recipients (Harris, 1996; Pavetti, 1997; Spatler-Roth, Burr, Hartmann, & Shaw, 1995). As described by Bane and Ellwood (1994) in a highly regarded longitudinal study of welfare recipients, many recipients remain on welfare for short periods, cycling off and on welfare and into jobs. These "cyclers" rely on welfare as a safety net during times of temporary unemployment or family crisis, leaving and returning to welfare as their circumstances change. One study revealed that as many as two-thirds of recipients leave welfare for employment (Harris, 1993). Thus, long before TANF, recipients left the rolls for work when jobs were available. In sum, because TANF was implemented during a time of job growth, some of the decrease in the welfare rolls is related to labor mark et conditions rather than attributable to TANF.

However, the decline in the welfare rolls did begin to accelerate in late 1996, after TANF was passed, declining by 40 percent between August 1996 and March 1999 (DHHS, 1999e). Even in states with higher-than-average unemployment rates, including Louisiana and Oregon, welfare rolls still declined, and job placements for recipients increased (U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO], 1998c). However, states differed widely in their experiences. West Virginia, with a lower unemployment rate than Louisiana and Oregon, placed fewer recipients in jobs. And states such as Wisconsin, with pre-TANF programs that most resembled TANF's strategy of work first, also experienced some of the largest declines (DHHS, 1999a). TANF, it would appear, did hasten at least some portion of the drop in welfare use beyond what could be expected from a booming economy. How TANF did this brings us to the second part of the question: Did TANF accomplish this decrease by making people self-sufficient?

There is hard evidence that the decline in numbers was unrelated to an increase in self-sufficiency. First, many states and localities cut welfare rolls by not permitting people on in the first place. Over 30 states have adopted "diversion" programs, which emphasize other methods of providing assistance, such as support services or a onetime cash payment, instead of providing ongoing cash assistance (GAO, 1998c). Other programs require recipients to look for employment for a specified time before considering their welfare application, and many of these people never return to complete their application for benefits (GAO, 1998c). In some states, between 40 percent and 84 percent of potential recipients were deflected by these diversion programs from applying for assistance (GAO, 1998c). In at least one instance, in New York City, where 10 percent of the nation's recipients live, the diversion programs crossed the line into illegality and resulted in legal action against officials for denying benefits to eligibl e and needy people (Swains, 1999). It is likely that eligible recipients in other states also were turned away, although what has happened to this potential pool of recipients has not been documented.

Other people were accepted on the rolls but were frequently sanctioned for failing to comply with the work requirements or other program violations. According to DHHS (1999d), sanctions have increased, rising about 30 percent nationally since 1994, with some states sanctioning half their caseload. In any given month approximately 5 percent of a state's total welfare caseload is under sanction, although rates vary from state to state (GAO, 2000). In many instances, sanctions are imposed improperly. A survey conducted by GAO (1997) found that 44 percent of the penalties imposed on recipients in a five-month period in Milwaukee's work program were later found to be erroneous. In sum, disentitling otherwise eligible people by diverting them from the rolls or by terminating assistance cannot be equated with the individuals achieving self-sufficiency.

There is a substantial group of recipients-- estimated between one-half and three-fourths-- who have left the rolls for employment (DHHS, 1999e; National Governor's Association, 1998; Parrott, 1998). These numbers represent an increase from earlier years. In the four years before welfare reform, the percentage of employed AFDC recipients increased from 19 percent to 25 percent. In the one year after welfare reform this percentage increased to 32 percent (DHHS, 1999d).

We do not know whether these recipients were pushed off by TANF's mandate to work or were cyclers who would have left anyway because of the good economy. A report by the Council of Economic Advisors (1997) attributed it to both, with welfare reform, rather than the economy, making the biggest difference between 1996 and 1998 compared with 1993 through 1996, when the economy played a larger role.

The central question, however, is whether former recipients are earning enough to maintain self-sufficiency. Virtually every study conducted by individual states tracking former recipients has found that these recipients remain mired in low-paying employment that does not provide enough to live on. The National Governor's Association 1998 summary of state tracking studies found that although between 50 percent and 60 percent of former welfare recipients found jobs, the average wage was only between $5.50 and $7.00 an hour. Likewise, Parrott (1998), in her analysis of studies of recipients in 12 states who left welfare and found jobs, concluded that most recipients still remain below the poverty line, even when working more than 30 hours a week. Typically, they earned less than $8 per hour, with many earning less than $6.00. GAO (1999a), after reviewing the most comprehensive of the state tracking studies, reached a similar conclusion, noting the uniformly low pay received by former recipients. This trend has not improved over time; more recently some studies have found that wages still average between $7 and $8 an hour, leaving the majority of former recipients with incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty line (Acs, Loprest, & Roberts, 2001).

A closer look at the findings of individual states underscores the difficulties of life after welfare. Wisconsin, the state that has pursued welfare reform most aggressively, reported that although 63 percent of those who left the rolls were working, 68 percent of those surveyed described themselves as barely making it, with less than half better off than when they were on welfare (Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, 1999). About one-third had trouble paying the rent and purchasing food. A second study found that most former recipients were financially better off when on welfare because their low wages "did not compensate for reductions in cash assistance and food stamps" (Cancian, Haveman, Meyer, & Wolfe, 1999, p. 12). The study also found that for the women leaving welfare in 1997, nearly three-fourths had incomes below the poverty line (Cancian et al., 1999).

Likewise, in Oklahoma (Oklahoma Department of Human Services, 1999), more than half of former recipients had incomes at or below the poverty level. And in Santa Clara County, California, officials estimated that only 25 percent of recipients leaving welfare for work had a livable wage, with 75 percent needing additional job training (GAO, 1998c). Finally, in New Jersey two-thirds of former recipients remained mired in poverty after leaving the rolls, with one-half experiencing severe hardship. Only one-third of former recipients had incomes above the poverty lines (Rangarajan & Wood, 1999). Thus, although there are clearly psychological and social benefits to working, it must be weighed against the frustration and strain of working hard but still being unable to provide the basic necessities of life for the family.

There is also evidence that even this precarious bit of near self-sufficiency is short-lived for many recipients. As was true under AFDC, job retention has emerged as a significant barrier to self-sufficiency. In Oregon, 35 percent of recipients who left the rolls returned after 18 months, and in Maryland, 19 percent returned within three months and 23 percent within l2 months (DHHS, 1999d; GAO, 1998c; University of Maryland, School of Social Work, 1998). According to Wisconsin's most recent figures, 20 percent of former recipients returned to welfare within the first several months (Cancian et al., 1999). The GAO (1999a) estimated that overall between 19 percent and 30 percent of former recipients end up back on the rolls. Even during a robust economy, TANF misses an important link in the chain of self-sufficiency-that keeping a job is as important as getting a job. Although this problem was easily foreseeable based on past experience and research, it was only in 1998, two years after TANF was passed, that DHHS began paying attention to this problem. Among other measures, DHHS then began issuing grants to study the efficacy of programs that offered postwelfare services designed to keep welfare recipients employed. (DHHS, 1998; GAO, 1998c).

In sum, TANF's work-first strategy may have pushed people into jobs, but not necessarily into self-sufficiency. That TANF has not solved the same obstacles to self-sufficiency--low pay and unstable work--that plagued recipients under AFDC is not surprising. TANF fails to consider just whom it is pushing into the labor market and what that labor market is like. The vast majority of adult TANF recipients are women, with 70 percent of TANF families headed by women (Gallagher, Zedlewski, & Loprest, 1999). Women are susceptible to sexual discrimination in the workplace, where women's wages are still, on average, only 75 percent of men's (Schiller, 1998). Thirty-seven percent of welfare recipients are black and 23 percent are Hispanic, adding the additional barrier of racism (DHHS, 1999b). Most of the jobs available to these women are in the services sector (Brown, Ganzglass, Golonka, Hymand, & Martin, 1998; Parrott, 1998), where gender segregation and gender bias have created what Piven and Cloward (1993) called "a vast new service proletariat," "an army of low wage workers who cook, serve, and clean for others, but who often don't make enough to feed their own families" (p. 362). This is where most welfare mothers already worked before TANF, and rather than leading to self-sufficiency, such jobs often led back to welfare (Harris, 1996; Pavetti, 1997; Spalter-Roth et al., 1995).

Although recent economic figures show a slight 2.7 percent increase in low wages, this increase reflects only a tiny step forward after many large steps backward (Mishel, Bernstein, & Schmitt, 1999). The decade of the 1980s saw a decline of nearly 20 percent in real wages (Mishel et al.), which, when coupled with inflation, meant that working hard at a low-wage job often meant living below the poverty line. This has held true in the 1990s despite a robust economy and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969 (Greenstein, Jaffe, & Kayatin, 1999). Full-time work does not always guarantee self-sufficiency; in fact, the number of full-time workers below the poverty line actually increased by nearly half a million in 1998 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999). For those poor families in the bottom fifth of households (where most former and current recipients are), gains in the economy have not translated into income gains. Average income for these households in 1998 was $9,223, a mere $23 more than the average income a decade ago (Greenstein et al., 1999). Thus, although a growing economy has made a dent in the overall poverty rate, it has not solved the problem of poverty among welfare recipients, the poorest of the population. Welfare reform for them often means being propelled into low-wage jobs that guarantee poverty, not sufficiency.

To make matters worse, TANF is ensuring that women remain stuck in these low-wage jobs. The reason for this goes to the very core of TANF: the insistence that work, not training and education, is the route to self-sufficiency. In contrast to the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program and other earlier welfare-to-work programs, TANF adopts a "work first" approach to welfare reform, assuming that the fastest and best route to self-sufficiency is simply to find a job and start working. To make sure that the states follow this approach, the federal government sets the numbers, hours, and even types of work activities required of recipients. Specifically, as of 2002 states were required to have 50 percent of all single-parent families working a minimum of 30 hours per week or risk fiscal penalties. Work activities are defined in such a way as to severely limit such options as vocational education and training. Only one-third of a state's caseload may receive vocational training, and then only for a y ear or less. Postsecondary education is more elusive and is not considered a work activity under the law (Greenberg & Savner, 1996).

This approach contradicts what studies have shown to be the single most important factor in sustaining self-sufficiency: the recipient's level of education (Harris, 1996). Simply put, education and a higher skill level means higher pay, especially in today's economy, where much of the job expansion is being fueled by the need for more highly skilled workers (Brown et al., 1998; Hayashi, 1999; Pindus & Nightingale, 1995). Harris (1996), in her longitudinal study, found that welfare mothers with a high school diploma had a 38 percent lower chance of returning to welfare than those who did not. Likewise, Spalter-Roth et al. (1995) found that women with a high school diploma were three times more likely to escape poverty. Another study by the Manpower Research and Demonstration Corporation (1994) found that workers with a high school diploma made from 19 percent to 29 percent more than those without one. College graduates fared even better. In one study of 158 women on welfare attending college in the 1980s, 87 percent left welfare after graduating, with one-half earning more than $20,000 per year as of 1989 (Gittell, Schehl, & Fareri, 1990).

With nearly half of all recipients lacking a high school diploma and only a fraction having college degrees (GAO, 1995), it is precisely this group that requires the most training and education. However, instead of providing long-term vocational education that will result in higher wages, many welfare offices throughout the country have been reconfigured to provide "job readiness training" (GAO, 1999b). Writing resumes and interview style tips have replaced the more serious efforts of the past to equip welfare recipients with more sophisticated skills through training and education. Even the general equivalency diploma has been reserved only for recipients who cannot find a job without it (GAO, 1999b). And although TANF does not prohibit recipients from pursuing the education or skills training needed to move into higher paying employment, it makes it very difficult for them to do so. The reason for this is straightforward: By steering such women into dead-end jobs where they are required to work up to 30 ho urs a week, TANF provides little, if any, time for employed single mothers with child-rearing responsibilities to pursue an education.

Already some disturbing evidence exists of lost opportunities. Local community colleges and universities, particularly in urban areas, have seen a decline in the number of welfare recipients enrolled, with some colleges losing as much as half of their total enrollment of welfare recipients (Arenson, 1998; Schmidt, 1998). Training programs that formerly filled their seats with welfare recipients are also experiencing declining enrollments. An early example of this phenomenon is Cooperative Home Care Associates, a company that has operated a training program in the Bronx, New York, for the past 12 years helping women on welfare become home health aides. As a result of TANF, the company's previously overflowing classes are emptying as the pool of potential students among the ranks of welfare recipients are being told to take low-paying jobs if they want to keep their benefits (Kolbert, 1997).

In sum, TANF jettisons the route that most Americans take to achieve a middle-class lifestyle--education and training. Instead it tells women on welfare that what they need is better work habits, not an education. In an inversion of the American Dream, poor women are being told that for them, security comes only if they work at any low-wage job they can find. Under TANF, what would never be acceptable for the children of the middle class--a job at McDonalds instead of attending college or acquiring a skill--is the acceptable, and even the preferred, path for poor women. As the numerous studies detailed earlier demonstrate, far from ensuring self-sufficiency, such an approach relegates welfare mothers to the low end of the labor market, a vulnerable place in good and bad economic times. It also ensures that the gap in wages based on educational level will persist and endure as poor women, forced to choose between losing their benefits or feeding their families, are trapped in low-paying jobs.

Does TANF Address Obstacles to Work?

As has been shown, TANF ignores the realities of the labor market. There are also indications that TANF fails to address adequately several other obstacles facing poor women on welfare who work. Most recipients are single mothers trying to maintain the dual role of nurturer and provider. TANF gives short shrift to the former role, dismissing the need for many women to remain at home to care for their families by mandating their participation in the workplace. Thus, mothers on welfare are expected to work and raise a family concurrently, a task even a dual-income middle-class family finds daunting. And they are expected to do it all on one, generally meager, salary that must cover the costs of day care and all of the family's other basic needs.

In the past, the lack of day care proved to be a significant barrier to self-sufficiency, with over half of single mothers working full-time unable to escape poverty because of the high cost of day care (Moffit, 1993). Many women on welfare want to work but cannot afford to because their expenses exceed the amount of wages they can expect to earn (Edin & Lein, 1997). Child care is cited as the primary barrier to work among welfare mothers and poor people (GAO, 1998d; Kisker & Ross, 1997). Increased dollars are available for child care under TANF, with the new law creating a single program--the Child Care and Development Block Grant--out of the many programs that had existed before. The new child care block grant also increased eligibility to cover more low-income working people (GAO, 1998d).

However, providing adequate day care so that women can work requires more than providing funds--it requires that day care sites be available. Presently, there is a shortage of the type of day care most needed by recipients, particularly for "off hours" and for other specialized day care (GAO, 1998d; Johnson & Meckstroth, 1998). Many recipients need such specialized child care because they work in the services industry, which requires night and weekend hours. Still others need sick-child care or special needs care for children with disabilities. The need for such day care varies, but in all instances the demand outstrips the supply of suitable facilities. For example, in some states the need for nonstandard day care has been estimated at 72 percent, but supply estimates range from 12 percent to 41 percent (Johnson & Meckstroth).

Also brewing underneath the present availability of day care monies are signs that additional monies will be needed as TANF work participation rates rise to 50 percent by 2002 and welfare mothers work their way into the ranks of working poor people. Existing funds are insufficient to cover the day care needs of working poor people, and many states have excluded such families from coverage, with only 10 percent of eligible families receiving day care subsidies in 1997 (DHHS, 1999c; GAO, 1998d; Long & Clark, 1997). As welfare families go from welfare poor to working poor, they are likely to become ineligible for day care, threatening their self-sufficiency. However, present rates of funding are insufficient for the states to expand eligibility for day care to cover more working poor people (GAO, 1998d).

As it has in the past, the lack of day care forces many women back on welfare or, alternatively, forces them to resort to unsafe or poor quality child care. Unless Congress authorizes additional funds, day care will continue to be a barrier to self-sufficiency and may, in fact, wipe out any gains made by welfare mothers as they take advantage of the expanding labor market.

Getting to work also can be a problem for welfare recipients, whether they live in cities, suburbs, or rural areas. Many suburban and rural areas have limited or no public transportation. Although cars fill the gap for most employees in these areas, many recipients are too poor to own and maintain cars (GAO, 1998e; Johnson & Meckstroth, 1998). And although most cities have public transportation, they often do not have the entry-level jobs welfare recipients need; these jobs are primarily located in the suburbs (GAO, 1998e). In other words, cities have public transportation and no jobs, and the suburbs have jobs but inadequate transportation systems. To make matters worse, three-fourths of recipients live in cities or rural areas, where poverty and unemployment rates are the highest, but two-thirds of the jobs are in the suburbs (GAO, 1998b; Nightingale, Trutko, & Barnow, 1999).

Solving this conundrum is one of the bigger challenges of welfare reform and is an example of welfare reform's complexity. From the beginning many states have recognized transportation barriers and have used their TANF funds for a variety of transportation services, from paying for recipients' car repairs, to using volunteers to drive recipients to work, to organizing county-run van pools (GAO, 1998c). However, none of these attempts really address the root of the problem, and transportation problems persist. To get welfare recipients to work, no less than a radical restructuring of public transportation systems may ultimately be needed.

There are a spate of new federal programs involving three federal agencies--the Federal Transit Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Transportation--that are attempting to find solutions by encouraging collaboration among transportation providers, employers, and social services agencies and actually creating new forms of transportation (GAO, 1998e). For example, one program, JOB LINKS, in Louisville, Kentucky, added an express bus from the inner city to an industrial park, cutting the commuting time from two hours to 45 minutes. However, these programs are still in the planning and demonstration stage, and whether they can solve this massive problem remains to be seen.

In summary, although TANF has recognized that it must address the twin problems of day care and transportation, it has not done so quickly, comprehensively, or effectively. Most telling is the fact that TANF requires welfare mothers to work whether or not day care or transportation is available. TANF eliminated the entitlement to child care provided under AFDC and permitted the states to sanction welfare mothers with children over age six for not complying with work requirements even if day care was unavailable (Super, Parrott, Steinmetz, & Mann, 1996.) Focusing more on work requirements rather than work obstacles, TANF rushed to put welfare mothers to work without first making sure that they could get to work, and that the children they left at home received adequate care. The result has been a game of catch-up, with problems that could easily have been predicted at the outset threatening to undermine any gains made by women in the labor market.

Is TANF Reaching the Hardest to Employ?

In addition to the problems of errant labor markets and day care and transportation barriers, a group of welfare recipients suffers from a range of problems, including mental illness, substance abuse, disabilities, and domestic violence, that can interfere with their ability to work. These problems are more common among welfare recipients than the rest of the population (Johnson & Meckstroth, 1998). The percentage of recipients who suffer from these problems varies widely. National estimates for recipients suffering from physical disabilities range from 10 percent to 20 percent, the range for mental disabilities is from 4 percent to 28 percent, and the range for learning disabilities is from 24 percent to 40 percent (DHHS, 1999d; Johnson & Meckstroth). The range for those suffering from substance abuse is between 5 percent and 27 percent, whereas victims of domestic violence are estimated to make up about 25 percent of welfare caseloads (Johnson & Meckstroth). Some recipients suffer from multiple problems. Th ese individuals are also the most likely to be long-term welfare users.

Although some recipients may be eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) on the basis of their disabilities, many are not because of SSI's extremely restrictive definition of disability, which covers only the most severely disabled individuals (Meyer, 1995). In addition, a substantial portion of the people whose primary disability is substance addiction are excluded from eligibility for SSI benefits.

In the past, several recipients with disabilities were exempt from work requirements because states recognized that a person could fail to meet the stringent requirements of SSI but still be unable to work. Many states have altered this policy and are now aggressively pushing this population into work programs. (However, states can opt to exempt victims of domestic violence from the work requirements [Greenberg & Savner, 1996]). In New York City, for example, women with multiple disabilities have been assigned to workfare slots after cursory medical examinations that gave short shrift to such serious work-impairing ailments as seizures and severe mental illness (Swains, 1998). Instead of services designed to help such women, the more likely response under the new welfare law is a sanction for work rule violations.

Statistics show that these recipients are increasingly making up a higher percentage of caseloads, as fewer disadvantaged recipients leave the rolls for work. Specifically, the percentage of recipients on assistance for five years or more--the group usually associated with multiple barriers to work--has increased from 19 percent to 24 percent of the total caseload. At the same time the percentage of women on welfare for one year or less declined from 36 percent to 33 percent (DHHS, 1999d; GAO, 1998a). Many of the people left on the rolls also reside in the inner city where, as indicated earlier, unemployment rates are higher.

This population of recipients with disabilities represents the most serious challenge for welfare reform. Until now, states have had no difficulty meeting mandated work participation rates as the pool of "job-ready" recipients leave welfare for work. However, these participation rates are set to nearly double over the next few years, to 50 percent of a caseload increasingly composed of fewer job-ready recipients with multiple problems (DHHS, 1999d; Nightingale et al., 1999). TANF makes no provision for this change in the characteristics of the welfare population and still requires these recipients to enter the job market even if they are not ready or able.

DHHS (1999d), in its second annual report to Congress on TANF, expressed serious concern about this population, finding that "too many families with multiple barriers to success are at risk of being left behind" (p. 140). The same multiple barriers that prevent them from working--lower educational abilities and a range of disabilities--also make it difficult for them to comply with the more stringent requirements for receiving welfare. Thus, they are more likely to be sanctioned for failing to comply with work requirements, because they are "unable to understand the complex program requirements and the consequences of noncompliance.., and [are] less likely...[to] have the organizational skills and abilities to comply with these requirements" (GAO, 2000, p. 30). In other words, this population risks being both cut off from welfare and cut off from the labor market.

Although legislative amendments were passed in 1997 to provide 3 billion dollars in welfare-to-work grants for states to provide services to many in this hardest-to-employ group, the legislation does not modify the work requirements or participation rates for this group, thus expecting the same from this population as expected of other groups despite their differing characteristics. This collision between what these recipients need and what TANF demands will cause increased hardship among this group, especially since the five-year lifetime limit on public assistance went into effect in 2001.

What Is TANF's Effect on Women and Children?

The intent of TANF was to end dependency on the government and make people self-sufficient. As explained earlier, although fewer people are dependent on government, it is less clear that they are now self-sufficient. One consequence of this is that former recipients who are unemployed or who do not earn enough to support themselves have been forced to find new avenues of support. Several studies indicate that these new sources include the family and relatives of people who are poor. A survey of former recipients in Michigan revealed that 56 percent of respondents relied on friends to make ends meet (National Governor's Association, 1998). Likewise, in Tennessee, 70 percent of those surveyed reported that they received help from family members (National Governor's Association). Thus, one outcome of TANF is that it has shifted the responsibility of helping people who are poor from the government to friends and family members, who are often the least able to help.

TANF also has had a ripple effect on the lives of poor women and children, making them more vulnerable to hunger and homelessness. These effects became apparent in the first few years after TANF was passed. In states such as Wisconsin, more than one-half of former recipients reported problems paying for rent and food (DeParle, 1999). Consistent with these reports, food pantries across the country reported an increase in people requesting food (Revkin, 1999). Many former recipients were evicted or forced to move when they were unable to pay the rent (Nichols & Gault, 1999). In some homeless shelters, nearly one-half of the families recently lost their benefits (Children's Defense Fund, 1998).

A fuller picture of what has happened to former recipients is now beginning to emerge as studies funded by DHHS have been completed. An Urban Institute report that synthesized the findings from 15 such studies found that many former recipients experience food hardships and difficulty affording health care (Acs et al., 2001). The spillover effects on children and family life is also becoming more apparent; one recent study found that adolescents forced to assume more responsibility at home while their mothers worked, and whose after-school time is now likely to be unsupervised, may be at risk of experiencing difficulties in school (Scott, Edin, London, & Kissane, 2001). Younger children also have been affected; one study found that such children receive less attention from single parents who find it difficult to balance the demands of work and home (Fuller, Kagan, & Loeb, 2002). In sum, it is not difficult to find hardship among former recipients of welfare.

Changing TANF

There are two divergent ways to approach any changes to TANF. One is to argue that TANF is a wrong-headed, punitive program that should be repealed if not radically altered. The second is to accept that the basic core of TANF is here to stay, at least for now, and focus on incremental changes to the law and expanding the supportive services necessary for women to work.

The first approach, although preferable, is probably not attainable at this time. Although the undoing of AFDC was sudden and quick, it is unlikely that TANF can be eliminated as easily. With the huge decline in the welfare rolls, the widespread and negative public sentiment against welfare recipients, and equally as prevalent proclamations by Democrats and Republicans alike that welfare reform is a success, a repeal of TANF is unlikely. Likewise, more progressive and universal programs to address poverty, such as family allowances and a guaranteed income, have to wait for a different political climate.

To some extent the second approach--increasing support services--is already underway. Since the TANF program was implemented, a rash of new programs have been authorized to fill some of the gaps that became apparent as states began to implement their TANF welfare programs. These programs left the core of TANF untouched and focused on the provision of additional support services, including training and services to the hardest to employ recipients, additional day care funds, provision of transitional health insurance, and transportation initiatives. These programs are politically palatable; it is hard to argue that poor women trying to work should not be helped in these areas. However, vigilance is required here. Despite evidence that these support services are vital to welfare reform, in past years states failed to spend as much as between one-quarter to nearly one-half of their TANF funds (Lazere, 2000). The recent downturn in the economy and resultant state budget deficits will likely make states even less generous when it comes to helping welfare recipients.

In addition to advocating for the increased use of TANF funds for support services, proposals that maximize and augment the uniformly low wages of poor women should be pursued also. As NASW has advocated, the strategy should be to reduce poverty, not welfare (Woodside, 2001). This includes increasing work incentives so that recipients do not lose their eligibility for assistance when their pay is insufficient to raise them above the poverty level. (Presently, in 40 states eligibility for assistance is lost before the poverty level is reached [Parrott, 19981). Other policies that focus on behavior in the labor market--rather than behavior of poor women-including an expansion in the earned income tax credit, an increase in the minimum wage, and continued attention to pay equity issues for women also need to be pursued.

However, this approach alone is ultimately insufficient. It does not address two looming problems: (1) the time limit for benefits that was implemented in 2001 and (2) a work-first approach that limits recipients' ability to climb the economic ladder to higher paying jobs that will truly ensure self-sufficiency. Although there is a 20-percent hardship exemption to the time limit, this may not be enough if the present trends continue, and clients with multiple problems continue to make up an increasing percentage of caseloads. The problem of job stagnation will continue if adequate provisions are not made for training and education.

The challenge, then, is to modify these two key provisions of the program. Preferably the time limit should be eliminated or certainly should not be limited to an arbitrary and inflexible percentage of caseloads that may not be related to the numbers of people still needing help after five years. The work participation rates and quotas for training also should be changed and expanded to allow for more and varied types of education and training. By changing these two central provisions, two very different groups standing at opposite poles of the welfare conundrum will be helped: the multiproblem recipient who is unable to work and will need assistance for longer than five years, and the job-ready recipient who can work but needs support services and a better paying job.

This approach represents a compromise; it leaves intact some of TANF's harshest provisions, including the work requirements backed by sanctions, but does not restore welfare's status as an entitlement. However, an incremental approach at this stage is politically realistic; it permits advocates to focus intensely and relentlessly on that part of the system where change is more likely. If successful, these changes would at least minimize some of the harm done by welfare reform, and at the same time put us back on the road to a more progressive approach.

For these changes to occur, advocates must take advantage of the window of opportunity that occurs during the evaluation phase of a new policy as TANF comes up for reauthorization in August 2002. To counter the popular and erroneous belief that TANF's punitive policies are the only way to force recipients into the labor market, advocates, including social workers, must take an active role in interpreting and publicizing the numerous studies and statistics described earlier and demonstrate that the economy, along with the unprecedented array and intensity of support services offered under TANF, is the key to moving large numbers of women into the workforce. Now, on the basis of this evidence, is the time to argue that some fine-tuning of TANF is needed to permit these women to take the next step and gain the additional training and education needed to ensure true self-sufficiency.

Advocates also must focus attention on the women who cannot work because of mental illness or other disabilities or circumstances. Here advocates must rely on more intangible arguments than the need for additional services and training and must instead make a plea for compassion. Ironically, TANF's perceived success by the public and politicians alike might be the opening that permits some of TANF's harshest provisions to be modified. Now that they believe that the welfare problem has been "fixed," and many women on welfare are in fact working, politicians and the public may actually be more receptive to proposals that exempt, with no artificial limits, the most vulnerable recipients from TANF's five-year cutoff. It is up to advocates to rekindle the public's often-dormant capacity for compassion and to fuel it with equal parts stories and statistics that demonstrate the true struggles facing poor women and their children. In short, unlike the debate that preceded TANF, advocates for poor women must make sur e they are heard this time.

Original manuscript received January 7, 2000 Final Revision received May 30, 2000 Accepted June 22, 2000

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Vicki Lens, JD, PhD, is assistant professor, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University. She will be joining the faculty of Columbia University School of Social Work, 622 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10015, where correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: vickilens@aol.com.