wfn.org | Advisory Committee Examines Impact of Welfare Reform

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

30-October-1997 
97410 
 
    Advisory Committee Examines 
    Impact of Welfare Reform 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Meeting  just before the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s 
national consultation on welfare reform Nov. 1-3, the Advisory Committee on 
Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), with the assistance of the Presbyterian 
Washington Office, examined the impact of the dismantling of the old 
federal welfare system during its Oct. 23-26 consultation here. 
 
    Last year, the 104th Congress passed legislation that left the states 
with new responsibilities for welfare. Temporary Assistance to Needy 
Families (TANF) -- the replacement for Aid to Families with Dependent 
Children (AFDC) -- limits the use of federal funds for welfare to a maximum 
of five years in the lifetime of adults and requires them to move into the 
workforce within two years. 
 
    Some funds are made available for job training and work readiness 
programs, but none are devoted to job creation, and no job is guaranteed by 
the federal government to the person whose time limits for assistance 
expire. Key to the new system is that federal funds are no longer 
guaranteed to individuals who qualify but are instead given to the states 
as block grants. These grants are fixed on the basis of AFDC funds received 
by individual states earlier in the 1990s and are guaranteed at that level 
until 2002.  Moreover, there are few federal requirements or guidelines, 
and the states have broad latitude to create their own welfare-to-work 
programs and to determine whether and how the system will meet the needs of 
individuals. 
 
    During an ACSWP briefing, the Rev. Walter L. Owensby, associate for 
economic justice, Middle East and Latin America issues for the Presbyterian 
Washington Office, said he believes the old welfare system has been 
demolished without any clear understanding of what will replace it and how 
hundreds of thousands of people -- including the two-thirds of welfare 
recipients who are children -- will be affected. 
 
    "[The new system] is billed as a welfare-to-work program, yet the 
Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal block grant is $12.6 
billion short of the actual funds needed to put all parents to work," 
Owensby said. "In order to receive federal TANF funds, states must continue 
to spend at least 80 percent of what they previously spent on welfare 
programs. Many fear that is an invitation to spend 20 percent less." 
 
    Owensby noted that block grants are often the first step of federal 
abandonment of programs shifted to the states and that federal TANF funding 
is guaranteed only through the year 2002. After that, Congress could try to 
force the states to assume even greater financial responsibility. 
 
    Owensby said states have already gone beyond statutory minimums in 
meeting critical social needs. From 1990 to 1995, he said, AFDC payments 
lagged behind inflation by 16 percent, but most states did not fill the 
gap. Despite rhetoric about moving people from welfare to work, states 
studied in 1994 used only 76 percent of federal funds available to them for 
job training, due most likely to matching requirements. 
 
    Owensby said he is also concerned about the new welfare program's 
implementation in the midst of  "extraordinary" national economic 
expansion, which has produced the lowest unemployment rate (holding at less 
than 5 percent) in decades. Time limits might push people off welfare in 
periods of economic decline, when fewer jobs are available and general 
unemployment is increasing. 
 
    Government leaders have been criticized by mainline denominations, 
including the PC(USA), for calling upon churches to increase their 
responsibilities to the poor and marginalized. The policy statement "God's 
Work in Our Hands," passed by the 207th General Assembly (1995), contained 
important principles that apply to current decisions about the role of the 
states in implementing welfare- to-work legislation, among them: 
 
    "6. The social safety net that supports individuals, families, and 
communities suffering from economic dislocation must link both private 
voluntary agencies and the public sector. The church alone cannot provide 
an adequate safety net. 
 
    "7. The foundation upon which all just employment policies are built is 
access to employment at a level of compensation that allows people to live 
in dignity and security. In a market economy, the private sector provides 
the majority of jobs, supported by local, state, and federal government 
policies designed to ensure that there is sufficient employment for all 
willing and able to be in paid employment. ..." 
 
    The 1982 General Assembly also declared that the church does not define 
its primary responsibility in or to society in terms of welfare service. 
The Assembly insisted that the government bears primary responsibility to 
provide for the protection and well-being of its citizens and that service 
to the poor and the needy is a matter of right and cannot be allowed to 
depend on voluntary charity. 
 
    At the very least, the financial blow to the nation's churches would be 
severe if they were to try to compensate for government cuts by stepping up 
their ministries to the poor. According to "Bread for the World," a 
nonprofit, anti-hunger advocacy organization, 350,000 U.S. churches would 
have to add more than $150,000 each to their budgets over the next six 
years in order to replace nutrition program cuts alone in last year's 
federal budget. 
 
    The President's Summit on Volunteerism, held last April 27-29 in 
Philadelphia, was also criticized as a cover-up for government welfare 
reform by some denomination officials. For instance, the Rev. Gary R. Gook, 
associate for the Presbyterian Hunger Program in the Worldwide Ministries 
Division, said, "in many ways the event had the feeling of a pep rally for 
volunteerism. In many ways it deserved the criticism that it was simply a 
smoke screen to cover the damage being done by welfare reform." 
 
    The Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the Presbyterian 
Washington Office, said many people suspect that federal and state 
governments are using, or would like to use, volunteer programs to avoid 
their responsibility to address social needs. 
 
    "At a time when the federal welfare program is being dismantled and 
other government social service programs have been cut back sharply, there 
is unease that government may be trying to use volunteerism to pass off 
poor people to churches and other nonprofits," Giddings Ivory said. 
 
    During a presentation to ACSWP, U.S. Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), a 
Presbyterian member of the 105th Congress, acknowledged that while the 
merits and shortcomings of federal emphasis on volunteerism are debatable, 
he does not see the government's new emphasis on volunteerism as a "threat" 
to the nation's poor and marginalized. 
 
    "I don't see that at all," Pomeroy told the Presbyterian News Service. 
"I think if we've learned anything it's that you can't conduct government 
programs without connecting with individuals. [Local] congregations can't 
effectively exercise their mission responsibilities through communities 
that meet far away and [which never have contact] with the congregation. 
Mission is an individual responsibility and an individual exercise, so I 
think volunteerism is possible." 
 
    More than 200 synod and presbytery representatives are scheduled to 
gather in Louisville, Ky., in early November for a consultation titled 
"Service and Advocacy Ministry in the New Welfare Reality." Each presbytery 
was encouraged to send two persons, one with experience in the area of 
community service ministries and the other with an active commitment to 
public policy advocacy. 
 
    Sponsored by the General Assembly Council, the meeting will address 
many welfare questions, including What are the most effective models for 
ministries addressing the needs of persons affected by welfare programs? 
What support do congregations need from presbyteries as they engage in 
these ministries? and What is the most effective role that GAC programs can 
play in supporting these ministries? 
 
    The Rev. Belinda M. Curry, ACSWP associate for policy development, said 
ACSWP will conduct a workshop at the conference titled "Public Policy 
Development in the Presbytery." Curry said the workshop, which will be led 
by the Rev. Peter A. Sulyok, ACSWP coordinator, and Stephen C. Hsieh, a 
former ACSWP chair from San Jose, Calif., is designed to help Presbyterians 
develop social witness policy to impact state and local government welfare 
programs. 
 
    ACSWP develops and recommends social witness policy to the General 
Assembly. The term "social witness policy" refers to the positions adopted 
by the Assembly to express its stance on, and guide response to, issues in 
the public order, including their relation to the church's own life. 
 
    The Presbyterian Washington Office is the public policy information and 
advocacy office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.). Its task is to advocate, and help the denomination to advocate, 
the social witness perspectives and policies of the General Assembly to 
Congress and the Administration. 

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