Welfare-to-Work Proposal Would Limit Vocational Training
People who are receiving welfare may have a harder time attending college if proposed regulations aimed at tightening welfare rules take effect.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is seeking comment through August on a proposed rule that would no longer count the pursuit of a bachelor’s degree as “work.” The proposed limits reflect efforts by the Bush administration to move people from welfare to employment by requiring that they work a specific number of hours each week in order to continue receiving financial assistance, food stamps and Medicaid under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Act (TANF).
Some argue that, if the proposal is finalized, low-income citizens could have a harder time pursuing college degrees. Among the regulations being proposed is a 12-month limit on counting vocational-educational training as work.
“HHS has narrowed the act and wiped out any possibility to use education as a way to qualify for work,” says Dillonna C. Lewis, co-director of the Welfare Rights Initiative at Hunter College in New York.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to push states to steer people from welfare to work. Under the act, state public assistance caseworkers were required to close a certain percentage of cases. States also began requiring welfare recipients to participate in work activities before they could receive benefits.
Overall, the reform was successful, and states cut welfare cases by more than half. But critics of the program say that once the state’s goals were met, they relaxed efforts to ensure that welfare recipients were still working. Now policy-makers say states need another push to continue reducing welfare dependency.
