The authorization for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families expired September 30, 2002. Since then, TANF has operated at the 1997 funding level through a series of continuing resolutions approved by Congress. House leadership included TANF in Budget Reconciliation at the last possible moment many members were not aware of its full implications.
The conference agreement:
- Allows states to reduce benefits for almost all of the 28 million children enrolled in Medicaid today.
- Includes more punitive provisions than the original house-passed bill in restricting eligibility for long term Medicaid services hurting many low-income seniors.
- Will now cost states an additional $8.4 billion over five years, potentially forcing states to shift resources away from desperately needed child care to fund the new work requirements.
- Imposes increasingly onerous work requirements on two-parent families.
- Severely limits states’ ability to tailor state programs to meet the individual needs of local families.
- Denies contraception to poor women on Medicaid for the first time in the history of the program.
- Delays certain Supplemental Security Income payments for up to a year for many poor individuals with disabilities who are eligible for Supplemental Security Income.
- Makes more difficult to receive or pay back student loans for low and moderate income students.
Congress should reject the Conference Report to S. 1932 and consider TANF reauthorization separately and in a way that ensures that working-poor families, particularly low-income and moderate-income families, have the opportunity to move from dependence to self-sufficiency.
