Women on Cash Assistance Testify on The Hill to Change TANF Policies

[ccharles000]

In D.C. these days, it’s hard for anyone to yell loudly enough to get heard over the buzz of health care reform. But in the shadow of Obama’s healthcare summit yesterday, about a hundred congressional staffers, reporters and advocates piled into a House briefing room to listen to low-income mothers talk about welfare.

Yesterday’s briefing was organized by the Women’s Economic Justice (WEJ) network, a cohort of low-income women’s community organizations. Several current and former cash assistance recipients were there to share their stories and I also spoke in my capacity as a researcher to the serious need for a reform of the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program.

The women on the first panel spoke through tears about the failures of welfare reform to help them get out poverty. In the words of one mother, “TANF was my biggest barrier to getting me and my family out of poverty.”

About halfway through the first panel, Congressman Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington, stepped in and spoke for a few minutes about the need to change the way we deal with poverty and re-reform welfare. He condemned TANF policies that abandon children and push women into lives of working poverty.

http://www.racewire.org/archives/2010/02/women_on_cash_assistance_testify_on_the_hill_to_change_tanf_policies.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. About time someone listened... n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. An absolute necessity

Poverty is much worse since welfare was 'reformed'.

[Donnachaidh]

3. we can thank Bill Clinton for his *reforms*.

:puke:

[rhiannon55]

4. I'm a TANF worker and I hate Welfare Reform

When people apply for TANF, I have to make them sign a shit load of forms and agree to spend several hours every day at the Workforce Center looking for a job. If they don't show up every day, I have to cut off their assistance. And when people have gotten TANF for 60 months in their lifetimes (beginning in 1996 when welfare reform began), they don't qualify for TANF ever again. Very little is based on individual circumstances.

These rules maybe sort of made sense when the economy was good and jobs were plentiful, but they make no sense whatsoever now.

I'm also a food stamp worker. That part of my job is so much easier to deal with because I don't have to make people who apply for just food stamps jump through hoops looking for jobs that don't exist.

I voted for Bill Clinton twice, but I'm not happy with some of his decisions; Welfare Reform is definitely one of them.

[FirstLight]

5. I am beyond thinking anything can really get one "out of poverty"

I have been on & off TANF three times on my adult life...eaach time I was off assistance I eaither was remarried and had a second income to kee us afloat (sort of, though my ex was usually unemployed) or I was working my A$$ off at a 40 hour week reception job for 12.50 an hour max and not doing any of the work I was trained for. (journalism, PR, marketing) The job gave me a 50 cent raise and all of a sudden I was off most assistance - .50 cents does NOT mean I can all of a sudden afford most daycare expenses, most food expenses, etc...I still needed help! and to top it off, i couldn;t afford to put my kids on the healthcare my job offered, nor could I afford to have $200 a month siphoned off my paycheck for my own healthcare that had a deductable. But medicare said we made too much now... 50 cents changed everything!

I realize that my living in a rural area has made it harder to 'find a good job' but the reality was that I could either get a reception job and work like crazy for a while and 'feel' a little better about myself, or I could move to a metro area and take my chances (and without money to really move, that was a far fetched option.
Besides...one thing that people fail to take into consideration is when you are in that state of need and reliance on the good graces of friends or family that may be nearby - relocating in any fashion means you have to start over with a whole community and support system. For me, the price was too high, so poverty became our "best" reality. Even working poor HERE was better than trying to figure out a whole new area, new people and new resources for my kids... and really, none of those jobs are even around anymore. Wouldn't it have been a bitch If we'd relocated to Reno, gotten it figured out, and then I got laid off...I'd end up back in my rural town in a heartbeat anyway, because this is where my connections are.

Anyway... just needed to vent. Being a single mom and dealing with the system are not fun, and it sucks because even after taking a program at sac state to retrain, there are no jobs. so I am waiting for things to turn around...

Meanwhile I am beating the bushes mySELF to work on my freelancing biz and other projects....hope that 'someday' of financial peace comes soon...

[lunasun]

6. FirstLight

I wish you financial peace You sound like you will find a way