wfn.org | U.S. Churches Must Brace for the Impact of Welfare Reform

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

4-November-1997 
97421 
 
    Economist Says U.S. Churches Must Brace 
    for the Impact of Welfare Reform 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--A nationally renowned economist says the nation's churches 
must brace for the impact of welfare reform now that the 61-year-old system 
has been dismantled by the federal government. 
 
    Dr. Teresa Amott, associate professor of economics at Bucknell 
University in Lewisberg, Pa., was among the panelists during the Nov. 1-3 
consultation titled "Service and Advocacy Ministry in the New Welfare 
Reality," sponsored by the General Assembly Council (GAC). More than 200 
Presbyterians, many of them staff members and elected leaders from 
presbyteries and synods, gathered to address and discuss a variety of 
welfare reform questions. 
 
    Last year, the 104th Congress passed legislation that left states with 
new responsibilities for welfare while requiring the majority of America's 
2.4 million welfare recipients to shift from welfare to work within a 
limited time frame. 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. 
 
    Integral to the new system is the fact 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. Additionally, 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. 
 
    Consequently, Amott said, congregations over the next five years will 
increasingly feel the impact of welfare reform on their service ministries, 
many of which are already taxed to capacity or near-capacity levels. 
 
    "Every month there may be one or two new alerts," Amott predicted. 
"There will be telephone trees calling you and saying, `Do something about 
this.' Over time, the service and advocacy demands will escalate and the 
church will be called upon in terms that are as strong as those words of 
the prophet [Micah]. It will feel like such a time as this." 
 
    Amott said the most obvious demand will occur as people are terminated 
from AFDC and begin to receive sanctions (meaning they lose part, if not 
all, of their welfare benefits). This action cuts the social safety net 
that supports individuals, families and communities suffering from economic 
dislocation. 
 
    Though there are many obstacles to implementing the commonly called 
"welfare-to-work" plan, one of the most serious is the low wage women 
leaving welfare can expect to earn, according to the Presbyterian 
Washington Office. 
 
     Most welfare recipients are women and children. Adults on the welfare 
rolls typically have low levels of education, training and job experience. 
Women leaving welfare usually qualify for, and are placed in, low-paid 
service, administrative and clerical positions. All of these are 
female-dominated jobs, mostly at minimum wage, which is not enough to lift 
a family out of poverty. 
 
    Many welfare recipients are already working but do not earn enough to 
support their families. A study by the Institute for Women's Research 
tracked welfare recipients over a two-year period and found that 43 percent 
of them combined welfare with a substantial amount of paid employment. This 
employment, however, was usually at a poverty-level wage. 
 
    With federal welfare assistance diminished, Amott said, the poor and 
needy will turn to religious- and community-based food pantries, feeding 
programs and shelters, perhaps in record numbers. She said there are 
studies that suggest that as much as 40 percent of the current welfare 
caseload will eventually be impacted by the five-year time limit, and an 
estimated 20 percent of current welfare recipients will immediately be 
affected because they already have been on welfare for five years. 
Simultaneously, these people will be required to participate in work 
activities, presenting another significant challenge to churches. 
 
    For instance, Amott said, congregations will have to ask whether 
churches should serve as sites for  "workfare" people. While acknowledging 
that fulfilling this need could present congregations with new 
opportunities for reconciliation, job training and spiritual formation as 
they minster to the poor, it also raises the issue of child care. In the 
new welfare reality, Amott said, child-care programs are inadequate, so 
churches will likely be called upon to care for children whose mothers and 
fathers are participating in work activities. 
 
    "It used to be the working poor were a smaller group. Now they're going 
to be a bigger group," Amott said. "The church then, serving as a new 
safety net, is possibly implicated in very serious and deep ways in the 
actual provision of the new welfare. However, we must never lose sight of 
that prophetic voice ... and to love one another in such a way as to ask 
ourselves always, `Were I a welfare recipient, what would I ask of the 
church?'" 

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