wfn.org | Welfare Reform Affects UM Institutions

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

CONTACT: 	Linda Bloom				 (10-21-71B){99}
		New York (212) 870-3803		   Feb. 23, 1998

NOTE: This is the second story in a series examining the impact of
welfare reform on United Methodist institutions.

Mississippi network calls legislators
to action on ending child poverty

	by United Methodist News Service

	When Mississippi legislators opened their 1998 session,
Congregations for Children sounded a call to action on child poverty.
	A project of United Methodist-related Moore Community House in
Biloxi, Congregations for Children is a network advocating for programs
and policies that benefit poor children and their families.
	The network provided legislators with a report called "The
Future is in Our Hands," which offers specific recommendations on how to
eradicate the poverty in which one-third of Mississippi's children live.
	The report is part of an attempt to fill the gaps created by
welfare reform, according to Carol Burnett, Moore's director. It is
funded by a grant from the Women's Division of the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries.
	The recommendations focus on three basic premises:
*	families need work that pays a living wage;
		*	affordable, quality child care benefits poor
children and keeps parents working; and
		*	all children need health coverage.
	Welfare in Mississippi now revolves around a block grant program
called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The report notes
that the program is aimed at reducing the welfare rolls, not poverty
itself.
"Placing predominantly low-skilled, under-educated, poor mothers into
low-wage jobs does not eliminate child poverty," the report points out.
Child care is one area that has been adversely affected by welfare
reform, according to Burnett.
"There ought to be more funds for child care, and the child care
delivery system ought to be expanding," she explained. Instead, she
said, child care providers serving low-income families find it difficult
to remain in business.
	The report's recommendations include supplementing federal
child-care dollars with state funds to expand the number of families
able to receive subsidized child care and guaranteeing full child-care
assistance for families in the TANF program.
Burnett and others also are lobbying the state to become involved in the
child health insurance program. "As families are pushed into low-wage
jobs, these jobs are likely not to have health benefits," she said.
Generating jobs that "pay a living wage" and placing poverty-level
workers in them is key to breaking the cycle of poverty.
Said Burnett: "We're concerned that for that ever to happen, it's going
to require states to be allowed to invest in adult education and
training."
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