Melissa Gutierrez November 3, 2010
TANF and the limits it imposes on recipient’s access to higher education by promoting work first
Upon the examination of the text of PROWRA, specifically the language of TANF, it is explicit that the federal government, and through granting the states broad discretion over the implementation of TANF, the state government, are denying recipients access to self-sufficiency. The government, Congress and the state and local governments, are denying recipients a genuine opportunity to obtain self-sufficiency, through the denial of access, the right, for a recipient to pursue a higher education. This higher education would lead to self-sufficiency because recipients would become more marketable. They would be more marketable because a degree would allow recipients to obtain the skills and training necessary to be competitive in the market place, hence economically independent. Through the federal and state government’s emphasis of promoting and funding of work first, they have explicitly limited recipient’s access to necessary educational training. This is an example of unequal citizenship between recipients and non-recipients. Further issues of unequal citizenship arise between recipients in different states because of the differing implementations of TANF and various definitions of what constitutes a work activity. Because welfare is a product of federalism, the states have had broad discretion over eligibility and sanction requirements, and the rules that it requires for recipients to remain eligible for assistance. TANF in particular grants the states more power over the structure of the system, arguably the most power that the states have had over recipients since welfare’s enactment. I will examine the policy history of the American welfare system to discover when access to education became an issue for recipients. Then I will focus on why TANF explicitly limits access to higher education. I will end illustrating how this is problematic and suggesting that access to higher education would offer recipients genuine self-sufficiency, an opportunity to survive and support themselves and their families, after their time limit is up.
Through the promotion and implementation of work first over policies in TANF, TANF has denied broad and equal access to higher education, which has denied recipients the opportunity to become self-sufficient and independent. I am going to examine the article Welfare Reform and Enrollment in Postsecondary Education to examine how TANF has affected educational rates of recipients. I have yet to read the entire article. I will use this statistical evidence to illustrate how the federal policy of TANF limits recipient’s ability to obtain a higher education. I also plan on using the book Shut out: low income mothers and Higher education in post welfare America by Valerie Polakow to illustrate how TANF is only harming single mother’s opportunities for self-sufficiency.
A low wage job is insecure for a single mother headed family, offering no real skills and making the single mother no more marketable. In contrast, a degree, higher education, offers economic security by providing recipients marketable skills. Vivyan Adair is a professor who was a former welfare recipient, and she writes an article which discusses the fight to have work study counted toward TANF work activity. There is no Federal definition of what constitutes a work activity/vocational training. The federal government imposes numbers that the states must meet to receive funding, such as participation rates in a work activity. Al though the federal government imposes on the states that only a small percentage of its caseload can be receiving educational training g at a time; states have ways to get around these requirements, as discussed below regarding the article in claim 2.
TANF allows the states broad financial discretion over implementing TANF through giving the states block grants. Many states and localities chose to allow much less than 30% of its case load to receive higher education. This unequal access to higher education creates unequal citizenship between recipients in different states as well as between recipients within a state in different localities. The states are following the guidelines of the federal government or using the freedom they were given to deny more recipients than required by TANF (70%) access to higher education through the promotion of work first. Many states are barring recipients access to higher education after an associate’s degree, some don’t even allow that to count. In New York City, a mother is told that a four year college is not an approved training program, and that hours studying for that degree and in class will not be covered by childcare costs. A recipient will have to work 35 hours a week to stay eligible and also find childcare and pay for it themselves while going to college full time if they want to pursue a Bachelor’s degree.
Al though TANF grants the states broad discretion when implementing TANF, “TANF discourages states from allowing welfare recipients to participate in education and training programs,”1 Furthermore, the article discusses how only “30%” of a state’s caseload can count education as a work activity for a “12 month period.” This limits a recipient’s ability to higher education explicitly, and further limits a state’s ability to count education as a work activity for a greater number of recipients. A right to obtain higher education if one can obtain it through financial aid is also denied by the states through there criteria of what constitutes “educational training.” Access to higher education would mean the right to have the hours one spends in a four year institution counted as part of the recipients weekly work requirement. Many states and localities determine individually for their locality the educational programs that are eligible to be counted as part of the weekly work requirement for recipients. Many of these localities do not include four year colleges as an eligible work activity, and so through the use of sanctions for noncompliance, welfare agencies deny recipients the opportunity to go to school by also making these hours ineligible for the child care that is subsidized during the hours of the work activity to be used toward the classes. Many individual states and localities choose policies that promote “work first” and ultimately believe that any job, low-wage, temporary, insecure, is a good job. Despite evidence that women who obtain a higher education have an almost 100% rate of remaining off of public assistance, the numbers of recipients in college has dropped, as noted by authors Ellen Reese and Felicia Kornbluh. This is due to the fact that local welfare agencies promote work as opposed to long term economic security and authentic self-sufficiency. The federal government granted the states the most freedom they’ve had with welfare implementation since the New Deal, through the enactment of TANF, allowing states to deny access to education among other things.
In the article State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Education under TANF, the author observes what effect welfare reform has had on recipient’s ability to obtain and maintain jobs which would support themselves and their families. While it was discovered that more people were working, it was also discovered that they were working in low wage jobs, with few if any skills, hence limited opportunity, if any, for growth. This article links higher education to the real success of welfare reform, allowing people to leave and stay off of TANF. This article discusses how many states implemented their welfare to work programs, focusing on “basic adult education” and “job search,” approaches that the author notes were unsuccessful in regard to recipients obtaining employment opportunities that would lead to self-sufficiency. “A state has broad discretion in defining what it means to be “engaged in work” for purposes of this requirement and a state can choose to count participation in postsecondary education (or other education or training activities) as being engaged in work for purposes of the 24-month requirement,” 2 Page 6-7 offers various types of strategies that states can use to provide access to higher education for those in need both within the TANF guidelines and outside of them. Through the “use of state maintenance effort funds” states can aid in the funding on recipients during their time in a four year college. (In order to get around time limits, have this activity count within the time frame). “Individual Development Accounts” “Data on state policies indicate that there are 22 states with policies allowing participation in postsecondary degree programs for longer than the 12 months countable as work under federal law.”3 If we adopted a policy along the lines of Illinois welfare policy, reform could be successful, “In 1999, a number of states took legislative or executive action to increase access to postsecondary education and training. Illinois has an especially innovative policy: the state “stops the clock” for purposes of TANF time limits while a TANF recipient is a full-time postsecondary degree student and requires no other work activity, provided the recipient maintains at least a 2.5 grade point average.”4 Policies like this would enable recipients to truly successes and to maintain self-sufficiency when leaving the roles, avoiding getting back on them. This article used statistical evidence to illustrate that while employment rose and rolls declined, many recipients were employed in jobs that kept them below the federal poverty level as well as a lack of employer based services such as health insurance. “A recent study of a national sample of women who had left welfare found that among those who were employed, wages averaged $6.61, above the minimum wage but at only the 20th percentile of wages for all workers. Only 23% of the employed former recipients were receiving employer-provided health insurance. For employed TANF recipients, average earnings in 1998 were $553 a month.”5
States with success stories after implementing programs focusing on educational attainment “The recent, very impressive results from the Portland, Oregon site of the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) confirm earlier research findings–the most effective welfare-to-work programs are those that have a central focus on employment, but also make substantial use of education and training as a tool for helping recipients become employable and find better jobs.
Areas such as Florida, California, Portland, and Baltimore have enacted successful welfare to work programs. Statistical evidence illustrates the benefits of attaining a higher education “An analysis of the labor market returns for postsecondary education found that women with associate degrees earn between 19-23% more than other women, even after controlling for differences in who enrolls in college. The same study, which analyzed nearly twenty years of longitudinal data while attempting to adjust for differences in ability and family background, found that women who obtained a bachelor’s degree earned 28-33% more than their peers. Other studies have found that each year of postsecondary education increases earnings by 6-12%.20 In addition, studies that have tracked welfare recipients who completed two or four-year degrees have found that about 90% of these graduates leave welfare and earn far more than other recipients.”6 Statistical evidence for educational attainment and higher wages, leaving poverty, staying off of welfare is further verified, “Census data also show a strong relationship between educational attainment, earnings, and the likelihood of being unemployed or out of the labor market.”7 What I found particularly useful about this article was that it offered the states ways within the existing framework to aid recipients in obtaining a higher education while simultaneously meeting TANF requirements. “A state may, unless otherwise prohibited by the law, spend TANF funds in any manner reasonably calculated to accomplish the purpose of the law. One purpose of the law is to provide assistance to needy families; another purpose is to end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage. Thus, any of the above postsecondary education related costs could be viewed as reasonably calculated to accomplish a purpose of TANF for members of needy families.”8 Furthermore, MOE funds can be used by states to aid in families achieving self-sufficiency. “Thus, it is clear that a state may choose to use TANF or MOE funds in support of postsecondary education if it wishes to do so.”9 This further illustrates that the states are choosing to limit recipient access to higher education, even beyond what TANF requires. “There are two principal work and participation requirements under TANF: federal participation rates (discussed below) and the 24-month requirement. While federal participation rate requirements are very specific as to what counts as participation and the consequences of a state’s failure to meet the rates, the 24-month requirement was written to allow very broad state discretion. It is up to each state to determine what counts as being “engaged in work” and a state can count participation in postsecondary education as being engaged in work for purposes of the 24-month requirement.”10 So, although TANF imposes limits on the states autonomy when implementing TANF, it never the less allows the states ways to grant recipients access to higher education. “While Congress enacted a specific list of what counts as being “engaged in work” for purposes of participation rates, Congress expressly said that for purposes of the 24-month requirement, an individual must be engaged in work “as defined by the state.” This was not a technicality in drafting; it was broadly recognized that states would have extensive discretion in defining the contents of the 24-month work requirements… While a state’s definition of being “engaged in work” must be within the bounds of reason, inclusion of work-preparation activities such as job search, job readiness, education and training can all be considered within the permissible activities that a state could include. Thus, there is no reason why the 24-month requirements need be a barrier to allowing access to postsecondary education in a state’s TANF program.”11 Furthermore, states can use measures such as “state waivers” to grant recipients access to higher education. “HHS says that a state’s waiver demonstration will be considered to have a “work participation component” if the demonstration includes provisions that directly correspond to the work policies in Section 407 of the TANF statute.”12 However, only “some states will be able to count postsecondary education toward participation rates to a greater extent, but only if the state asserts inconsistencies based on continuing a waiver until its expiration, and only if the state files the necessary certification with HHS.”13 This is a great start, a solution to the problem at the moment and allowing people more access now, yet this is not ideal. All recipients in every state need an equal right to be recognized to obtain/access higher education. Need a Broad liberal standard. The article further discusses how states can use a “caseload reduction credit” to fund access to higher education for TANF recipients. Ultimately however, I disagree that we should use funding for job training programs, I advocate we focus solely on advocating funds in a manner which would allow recipients access to higher education. This focus, I believe, will lead to greater marketability of the recipients, hence an even greater opportunity for self-sufficiency.
This unequal access to higher education in different states manifests in numerous types of unequal citizenship between different groups of people. The first type of unequal citizenship exists between recipients and non-recipients of public assistance. Recipients are forced to revoke their financial aid and the ability to go to college where as non-recipients are not penalized by their employers for going to school (that would be discrimination). There are numerous recipients in a given state who are eligible for financial aid and cannot go to school because of TANF. All the while, non-recipients who receive aid can go to school without anyone telling them that their education doesn’t count/restricting their access with financial penalties. People on SSI or unemployment, for example, are not told that in order to receive their benefits, they must drop out of school. Both the federal and state governments are limiting liberty, or our 14th Amendment equal protection clause. Furthermore, the government is limiting vocational freedom by denying higher education as opposed to all education, and it is a common fact that people utilize higher education as a means to get out of poverty and/or climb the social/economic ladder, so the government is basically saying, “you’re too poor to ever be a doctor, the most you will and can ever be is a medical assistant, because that is all we will assist you in being.” This not only denies recipients the right to choose a career, it denies them the opportunity to gain skills necessary in today’s marketplace.
Furthermore, TANF creates/produces unequal citizenship between recipients of different states due to a) differing levels of access to higher education and b) differing standards of what constitutes vocational training/work activity. I’m going to examine the relationship between federalism and TANF regarding access to higher education. Currently, TANF produces unequal access to higher education in different states due to the broad control given to the states to implement welfare to work policies. Welfare reform (TANF) turned welfare (ADFC) from an individual entitlement to a state block grant. Welfare has always been a product of federalism, but through TANF, the states were given more power by the federal government. The states are allowed to have such vastly different standards and eligibility and sanction criteria and the states rules do not have to be held to any other national standard, other than minimal ones such as ensuring a given number of recipients are working at all times. Differences in the states promotion of work first/implementation of welfare to work programs, illustrates the unequal citizenship between recipients. Based on state by state determined eligibility and sanction criteria, there are state to state differences in recipient’s ability to obtain educational training on TANF, as well as interstate differences in localities definitions of approved training programs. This not only constitutes unequal citizenship between recipients in different states, but also unequal citizenship between recipients within a state.
Because resources are used to promote work first and insufficient vocational training programs, they are diverted from childcare that could allow for more recipients to pursue a higher education. Though the denial of access to higher education which would allow single mothers to earn a wage that would support her family, she is denied the option of being a self-sufficient single mother and supporting her family on her income. She gives up stay at home motherhood in an attempt to be a provider in a low wage job and go to school to get a better job. Due to this dilemma, not only must she forfeit the option of being a stay at home mother, she also has to accept that with current TANF policy, she will never be an adequate (above the poverty line) provider for her family.
“Not surprisingly, given their low skills and educational levels, many welfare recipients fare poorly in the labor market.”14 This is proof that through the denial of higher education, the opportunity to obtain marketable skills, predominantly single mothers recipients are being kept in a certain position in the labor market. TANF policies promote a system of patriarchy, focusing explicitly on the goal of raising marriage rates and curbing out of wedlock births, promoting the nuclear dominant American family type which denies single mothers the opportunity to become self-sufficient as single mothers. Additionally, while TANF claims that the key to self-sufficiency is employment, a low wage job does not produce self-sufficiency. True self-sufficiency would come with the recipients gaining marketable skills to be marketable in the labor force, which are currently gained through post-secondary education. Recipients who are merely thrown into the labor force with no or little skill sets become extremely dependent on will of employer, and this leaves room for oppression, harassment, and exploitation by the employer.
Access to higher education as a matter of women’s equality: The article The New Welfare Trap Case Managers, College Education, and TANF Policy found in the gender and society journal uses feminist policy analysis promotes access to higher education. Furthermore, I am attempting to use an affirmative action type argument to illustrate the historical exclusion of women from higher educational facilities. This type of argument will advocate allowing women to catch up in the race.
I am going to use the following book by Ellen Reese: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present to discuss the barriers that TANF creates to limit or deny access to higher education. I am also going to use the following book by Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein: Making Ends Meet. This book provides empirical evidence for my argument. It discusses the fact that low wage work and welfare do not adequately support a family. Women in different states were interviewed to illustrate this reality. This illustrates that many single mother headed families do need subsistence, which they do not get from the market or from the welfare system. Chicago, Boston, San Antonio, and Charleston were some of the cities examined to prove that single mothers headed families could not survive merely on welfare and low wages, and certainly not on either alone. Many of these localities/states, and the federal government do not include four year colleges as an eligible work activity, and so through the use of sanctions for noncompliance, welfare agencies deny recipients the opportunity to go to school by also making these hours ineligible for the child care that is subsidized during the hours of the work activity to be used toward the classes. Despite evidence that women who obtain a higher education have an almost 100% rate of remaining off of public assistance, the numbers of recipients in college has dropped, as noted by authors Ellen Reese and Felicia Kornbluh. This is due to the fact that local welfare agencies promote work as opposed to long term economic security and authentic self-sufficiency.
I am also going to use the following book by Kenneth Neubeck, When Welfare Disappears: The Case for Economic Human Rights to further illustrate the necessity of higher education for single mother headed families. Neubeck illustrates why single mother recipients have particular difficulty staying off of or avoiding public assistance which is through systemic barriers such as a lack of access to education and job training skills that would allow single mothers to be more competitive in the job market and get out of poverty. “PROWRA reflects what some have called the “new paternalism.” The act subtly communicates a strong distrust of–if not disdain for–impoverished lone mothers even as it spells out measures to control them,” (Neubeck 31). “U.S. welfare policy has reflected and, in many ways, has reinforced society wide systems of class, gender, and racial inequality,” (Neubeck 32). Neubeck discusses the difficulty of single mothers and uses statistics of those on TANF, exiting, and the poverty rate to illustrate the harmful effects of TANF. I will also use articles from the book Women, the State, and Welfare by Linda Gordon to illustrate the denial of recipient’s access to higher education as a denial of gender equality. Furthermore, I will use the book Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics by Gwendolyn Mink and Rickie Solinger to further explore all of my claims in this paper. Mink notes that for economic purposes, the effects of the “labor market,” and wages, welfare was turned from an “income maintenance program” to a “wage supplement.”
1 Workforce Development Series: Built to Last: Why Skills Matter for Long Run Success in Welfare Reform By Karin Martinson and Julie Strawn April 2003 Brief No. 1
2 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 5
3 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 7
4 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 7
5 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 9
6 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 13-14
7 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 14
8 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 15
9 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 16
10 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 16-17
11 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 17
12 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 21
13 State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF page 21
14 Workforce Development Series: Built to Last: Why Skills Matter for Long Run Success in Welfare Reform By Karin Martinson and Julie Strawn April 2003 Brief No. 1
