|
House vote strikes huge blow to welfare reform
Chandler hopes governor will resist move to
undermine successful program
House Democrats went
even farther Wednesday than their Senate counterparts to undermine the
state-sponsored welfare reform program that was hailed as a bipartisan
breakthrough in the late 1990s, said
Rep.
Bruce Chandler.
"The fundamental intent of
the WorkFirst program is to create opportunity instead of encouraging
dependency. The legislation adopted by the House betrays that," said
Chandler, R-Granger. "Yesterday's vote
is a huge blow to a program that has demonstrated for the past 10 years
that welfare-to-work has successfully helped families become
self-sufficient. Now we are looking to the governor to veto this bill
and defend a program that was negotiated and supported by her
predecessor."
The historic
Welfare Reform Act of 1997 requires welfare recipients to engage in
certain job search and work activities as an ongoing condition of
eligibility. Recipients who become parents may apply for a one-time
exemption -- for only one child -- until the child is three months old,
then they must begin or resume activities such as parenting skills
instruction or job readiness training.
Senate Bill 6016 would strip the list of work activities from state
law in favor of participation in non-work activities such as alcohol or
drug treatment, or parenting education. As passed by the Senate, it
would double the exemption from work activities to six months, and
remove the one-time, one-child limit. The House amended the bill
Wednesday
to double the exemption again, to one year.
That's unfair to the many
new mothers across Washington who are not on welfare and go back to work
within months of having a baby in order to support their families,
Chandler said.
"I believe this will turn out to be one of
the most important bills of the session, because of the damage it would
cause to a government program that actually seemed to be working," said
Chandler, who is Republican leader on the House State Government and
Tribal Affairs Committee.
Chandler cited an early
study of 130,244 adults on welfare which concluded that WorkFirst had
cost-effectively increased participant employment rates by 56 percent,
hours worked by 34 percent, and earnings by 48 percent. It also
had reduced welfare use by 21 percent.
SB 6016 will now return to
the Senate for consideration of the changes made by the House. If the
Senate concurs the bill will head to the governor's desk.
# # #
Contact: Rep. Chandler, (360) 786-7960
Eric Campbell, (360) 786-7720
|