Subcommittee Hearing on Welfare Reform at 30: Restoring the Promise of Work and Personal Responsibility in Federal Welfare Programs
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House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Work and Welfare U.S. House of Representatives
Danny Davis
Meanwhile, these cruel cuts were used to pay for huge tax cuts to the richest Americans, including the president and his cabinet. This is not fair to struggling Americans. In my state of Illinois, 150,000 people have lost the SNAP benefits they used to buy groceries. Alarmingly, 92,000 Illinoisans lost their health insurance after Republicans gleefully ended the ACA tax credit. And those who do have coverage are paying between 25 and 50 percent more for it, leaving less money for everything else.
Gas costs close to five dollars a gallon in parts of the state, a 50 percent increase during the Trump administration. This is not fair to struggling Americans. While regular Americans suffer, President Trump has increased his net worth by more than two billion dollars just since he returned to the White House. While regular Americans struggle, President Trump focuses on building a giant ballroom, surrounding himself with gold, destroying historical landmarks to entertain and grow the wealth of his friends and donors, and starting unnecessary war after war. This is not fair to struggling Americans.
30 years of TANF taught us that Congress's job is to stand up for the people who sent us here, to help give everyone a fair shot despite the challenges that life presents. We were not elected to empower a president who doesn't care about them. We were not elected to crush Americans during their most vulnerable times. This committee and this Congress need to listen to and assist parents that are struggling, not build new hoops for them to jump through to secure help from their government. And the first step in any TANF reform is to work together on a policy focused on what families tell us that they need.
And so, Mr. Chairman, I again thank you for holding this hearing, and I hope that Americans will get the help they deserve as opposed to straining them to get any benefit at all. Thank you very much and I yield back.
Jason Smith
Thank you, Mr. Davis. I'm now pleased to recognize the full committee chairman, Jason Smith of Missouri. Gentleman from Missouri is recognized.
Thank you, Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, for holding this hearing today. This is not the first time the Ways and Means Committee has marked the anniversary of the 1996 welfare reforms by taking the opportunity to reflect on their impact. In debate after debate following passage of the one big beautiful bill, we've heard from our friends on the other side of the aisle about how work requirements to receive public benefits will have a catastrophic impact on low-income and working families' lives. It's not lost on me that similar arguments were made 30 years ago. So it's worth revisiting the impact of these changes to have a sense how changes to other programs may play out.
As we look back on the successes of the 1996 TANF reforms and the progress that has followed, we should remind ourselves why reform was needed in the first place. Prior to those reforms, we had a welfare system that did far too much to create dependence on government assistance, to trap people in these programs, and far too little to encourage those who needed our help to also experience the dignity of work and the rewards of personal responsibility that can come with it. That was, after all, why leaders in both parties, including President Clinton, knew that change was desperately needed. Today, despite what I would hope would be bipartisan agreement that work is beneficial for individuals and their families, creating that path to greater independence and self-sufficiency, we still hear a lot of concern from our Democrat colleagues that they see work requirements as a bridge too far for those receiving welfare. Yet the facts show that the TANF reforms in 1996 had a transformational positive impact.
Following enactment of those reforms, welfare caseloads dropped dramatically from nearly 4.4 million in 1995 to 570,000 in 2024. As important, if not more important, outcomes for the folks the program was designed to help also improved dramatically. For example, employment among single moms went up nearly 40% in just the first four years after implementation, and real earnings roughly doubled. However, we know that today improvements are still needed, especially when it comes to achieving greater accountability at the state level and combating fraud to ensure resources are prioritized for those most in need. To that end, the Ways and Means Committee recently approved H.R. 8872, the Preventing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in TANF Act, to improve the integrity of that program.
At the end of the day, it is one thing to look at the data and discuss how these policies can work to improve outcomes, but it is also vital that we hear from those who have directly participated in our nation's welfare programs. That is why I'm grateful that we have a group of witnesses who can provide personal experiences from their perspectives with the welfare system. One in particular from the Show-Me State, Misty Kelso, from the great state of Missouri, is here to testify on her personal journey navigating and working with and within the welfare system. Ms. Kelso, I always, always appreciate having a fellow Missourian with us, so thank you for agreeing to participate, to share your lived experience, and for what you do to help others in need. And I want to thank all of the witnesses for helping the policy policymakers on this committee learn more about not just the financial security a job and steady paycheck can provide, but also the benefits to the individuals and the families who deserve to experience the dignity of work and all that it has to offer.
I yield back Mr. Chair.
Darin LaHood
Thank you Chairman Smith. We will now turn to our witnesses and we'll start off with introducing the witnesses and then you'll each have five minutes. Our first witness will be Scott Winship who is the senior fellow and director of the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute here in Washington D.C. Next we'll hear from Ms. Missy Hanks who is the executive director of the Elm Foundation in Huntsville Alabama. Next we'll hear from Matt Damshroder who is the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in Columbus Ohio.
Next we'll hear from Misty Kelso who is the operations manager at Watered Gardens Ministries in Joplin Missouri. And lastly we'll hear from Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner who is the co-founder and CEO of MomsRising in Kirkland Washington. Welcome to you all. We'll start off with you Mr. Winship and you're recognized for five minutes.
Scott Winship
Thank you. Chairman LaHood Ranking Member Davis and members of the subcommittee on work and welfare thank you for holding this important hearing on the 30th anniversary of the 1996 welfare reform law and for the opportunity to testify before you today. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act PRWORA which had its beginnings in the forerunner to this very subcommittee replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. AFDC had provided cash with few conditions and its benefits diminished when other income rose via a new job or a new marriage. The result was a classic poverty trap.
TANF instituted lifetime time limits and required states to engage beneficiaries in employment-related activities or to reduce their caseloads by an equivalent amount. Today the evidence is clear that welfare reform benefited poor families enormously. To summarize the evidence that I detail in my written testimony from 1994 to 2024 the share of single-parent families receiving AFDC or TANF plummeted from 46% to 8%. It dropped by half just between 1994 and 2000. This decline had no precedent in previous history.
From 1994 to 2025 the share of never-married single parents that were employed rose from 46% to 68%. In the three years between 1996 and 1999 it rose from 50% to 65%. Again there was no precedent to that point for that sort of increase. And importantly employment rates never declined to the level that they were before welfare reform even during the Great Recession. Pregnancy rates among unmarried women peaked in 1990 and are lower today by more than one-third.
From 1994 to 2024 the non-marital birth rate among women ages 15 to 17 18 to 19 and 20 to 24 fell by 84% 69% and 40%. Between 1996 and 2022 the child poverty rate fell by between 52 and 78%. The rise in earnings since welfare reform has been so large that if the safety net disappeared tomorrow there would be less child poverty than there was in 1993. Welfare reform showed the promise of a work-focused safety net that provides opportunity including work supports such as earned income tax credits tougher child support enforcement and generous child care support in exchange for personal responsibility. It provided a model for the anti-poverty policy reforms included in the recent One Big Beautiful Bill Act such as the tougher work requirements for food stamps and the introduction of work benefits in Medicaid.
But denial of welfare reform's success remains strong, especially as the 20th century fades into history. In 2021, a child allowance providing benefits without any requirements in return temporarily became the law. The enactment of the policy was fueled by claims of rising extreme poverty that had been thoroughly debunked. Public debate among economists as to the importance of work incentives contributed to the defeat of attempts to make the child allowance permanent that year. A subsequent National Academy of Science report vindicated the side arguing that decisions about working respond predictably to changes in government benefits.
Today, dozens of local experiments in providing a guaranteed basic income operate around the country, often funded through federal COVID emergency funds. Calls for a universal basic income have grown louder, fueled by premature convictions that artificial intelligence will put millions out of work. These policies would bring back features of the pre-1990s safety net that impeded upward mobility by weakening work and marriage incentives. While we wait for evidence from the new OBBBA work requirements, various incremental reforms to TANF would help beneficiaries. Representative Carey has sponsored H.R. 8872, the Preventing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in TANF Act, along with Representatives Miller and Bean as co-sponsors, and Representative Moore, which would ensure that TANF-funded benefits and services are directed to poor and near-poor families, prevent states from using federal TANF dollars to substitute for state spending, require states to spend their TANF funds within three years, and direct the Department of Health and Human Services and states to better address improper payments.
Thirty years ago, the nation hit on an effective set of policy reforms that reduced government dependence, increased employment, slashed out-of-wedlock childbearing, lowered the share of children living without two parents, and reduced poverty. It should go without saying that we should build on the lessons of welfare reform, not reverse course, as we continue our vital efforts to reduce hardship and expand upward mobility. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Winship. And now I recognize Ms. Hanks.
Kim Hanks
I'm gonna put on my glasses, I'm old, y'all. Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity that I have to be here today. My name is Missy Hanks, and I'm the executive director of the Elm Foundation in Huntsville, Alabama. And the Elm Foundation is a privately funded operating foundation providing grants and relational case management for education and workforce development. When necessary, we also provide stipends for barriers such as childcare or transportation.
We are an effort-based organization and participants work at least 20 hours per week to qualify. They must make and keep goals and increase their education and skills toward being gainfully employed so the result is...
Yes, sir.
You're real... okay. Thanks.
Kim Hanks
Um, so the goal is that they become self-reliant. While I have many stories to share, I'll share just two. One participant, Messie, and her nine-year-old son were homeless when they joined our program. We assisted Messie in returning to school. She became a nurse with supervisory duties.
She has since bought two homes, and her son received a full scholarship to attend Amherst, and he is currently in residency to become a pediatric doctor. Brock came to our program after high school, and he needed to become employed immediately. He has completed a local utilities lineman program, and he is now gainfully employed at a regional utility provider. And I come before you today not as a policy expert because I'm not that smart, but somebody who has spent their career, more than three and a half decades, working with and for people.
Both in federally funded and privately funded programs, I have seen that government programs can and can easily trap people and their children into dependency. I actually left this industry for several years because I honestly felt like I wasn't really helping anyone. Far too many people on my caseload relied on programs to address their immediate needs, but they did not utilize the programs that would lift them out of poverty. And I'm only before you today because the Elm Foundation utilizes the effort-based model. But I do think we can agree most Americans want to provide for their families and experience not only the dignity but the security that comes from knowing they can take care of themselves.
And we as service providers should not complicate the journey with dependency. At Elm, we ask a simple question: what can we do for you today so you won't need us anymore? We believe that assistance should be a bridge, not a destination. And we also know that work is an essential part to that journey because work not only provides income, but it also develops technical as well as life skills, problem-solving ability, and social capital, confidence, and dignity. As a nation, we must ask ourselves: what are the outcomes of our current social service program?
My experience in Huntsville gives me just a local perspective. The Elm Foundation also administers the Charity Tracker Network of Madison County, which allows participant organizations a locally sponsored tool which allows us to coordinate services and share information. As of July 2026, the network included 384 agencies and 936 agents, but that is only a small fraction of the nonprofits in my county. In 2025, participating organizations documented more than 77,000 assistance records, representing more than $5 million in assistance. To note, governmental agencies' data is not recorded in this database, so the $6 million plus that goes out every month in food stamps is, for example, food stamps, it's not counted toward these figures.
The data shows us that approximately half of the individuals receiving assistance were working-age adults between the ages of 18 and 59. And this is indicative to me that we are failing our citizens. Crisis assistance is necessary, but if the same person needs the same assistance six months later and again the following year, is our job finished simply because we provided a food box or paid a utility bill? I believe welfare reform should make effort, work, and reduced reliance on assistance core measures of success. And every program should demonstrate, they should be compelled to demonstrate efficacy through tracking the outcomes of their charity.
By strengthening coordinated case management and control at the local level, we can assure that we are helping people move to self-reliance. Charity must be relational and accurate for it to be effective, and that can only happen at the local level because a community knows their people. Coordination will help reduce duplication and allow resources to be directed toward those who can't help themselves: the elderly, children, and individuals with significant limitation. Presently, there is an overlap in our community in government and nonprofit assistance. We don't need more programs; we need better programs and better program performance.
Accountability in agencies is paramount, and at this time, we do not have that. We have what I call the Wild Wild West out there in our nonprofit agencies. We're serving in silos, not sharing information, we're not tracking outcome and leveraging resource. And I would just like to reiterate that accountability and compassion are not opposite. Accountability is not punishment; accountability is empowerment.
And we should expect effort from people because we know they are capable of it and of achieving more. But we should expect the same of our agencies that are funded through tax dollars. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to answering any questions.
Matt Damschroder
Good afternoon, Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. My name is Matt Damschroder and I'm the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the Ohio agency responsible for overseeing Ohio's public assistance, workforce development, adult protective services, child support, home energy assistance, and community services block grant programs. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was successful in reducing welfare roles and promoting work in Ohio and across the country. Since its passage, our public assistance caseloads have fallen dramatically, from more than 212,000 families receiving AFDC in 1995 to fewer than 4,300 families today. Between those families and child-only cases, just over 50,000 children currently receive TANF in Ohio.
In fact, about 87% of all recipients are children with child-only cases. Today, the adults remaining in Ohio's TANF cash assistance program that we call Ohio Works First are those who face multiple significant barriers to employment. Many live with physical or mental health challenges, most have limited education, and they often lack access to reliable transportation, childcare, and stable housing. These challenges are not easily addressed by a one-size-fits-all public assistance work requirement program. That is why we are grateful that Ohio was selected by the Administration for Children and Families last year as one of five states to participate in the new federal TANF pilot program.
Our pilot builds on the 30-year legacy of PRWORA, giving states flexibility by allowing caseworkers to work closely with participants to develop individualized plans that address their most significant barriers to work, rather than measuring compliance using the traditional work participation rate. The pilot instead gives us the flexibility to develop performance metrics that better reflect successful outcomes, metrics that can be measured and evaluated for the return on investment. This pilot will help reimagine the role that states play in administering public assistance benefits, moving from transactional services to transformational investment. It also strengthens the public benefits continuum by ensuring that our lowest-income adults on TANF cash assistance are ready and prepared to progress into SNAP E&T and WIOA-funded programs on their path to a sustainable career, financial independence, and a legacy of overcoming poverty. For example, our Benefit Bridge program connects participants with a care team that can help them address barriers, make a work plan, and ultimately achieve financial independence.
One participant, a young woman in Licking County, Ohio, who grew up relying on public assistance, says that the program gave her the skills and confidence to transform her life. She's now a nurse, a married mother, owns her own home, and is happily self-sufficient. Our Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program, CCMEP, takes a similarly innovative approach to helping low-income 14- to 24-year-olds break the cycle of poverty. CCMEP integrates TANF and WIOA youth funding to focus on people, not programs, and offer more coordinated individualized services. Ohio was one of the first states in the nation to attempt this degree of cross-program integration.
However, braiding these funding streams can be difficult due to misaligned federal performance measures. It would be beneficial to grant HHS waiver authority in the TANF program as it is granted to DOL for WIOA programs in limited circumstances. Many states like Ohio have taken meaningful steps to reframe assistance around a work-first philosophy, one that recognizes the benefits as a temporary support while placing employment with economic opportunity at the forefront of our interactions with recipients.
Our TANF pilot is the next step in modernizing the administration of public assistance. With that said, I believe we can add to this work by increasing our focus on TANF purposes three and four. Under the leadership of Governor DeWine, we have invested in fatherhood initiatives, promoted the success sequence, and increased support for kinship care. As an example, TANF-funded programming for a pilot program through the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood to teach dads about things like safe sleep, the importance of mom's breastfeeding, smoking cessation, and safe birth spacing. Involved fathers improve outcomes in communities with high infant mortality rates.
Thirty years after welfare reform, administering public benefits remains complex and challenging. We work every day to bar the door to fraudsters and those who would abuse the system while delivering important services to eligible Ohioans. We look forward to building on these principles, analyzing our pilot performance metrics, and working with ACF under the exemplary leadership of Assistant Secretary Alex Adams. Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Director. Now recognize Ms. Kelso.
Misty Kelso
Chairman Hood and Ranking Member Davis and subcommittee, good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to be here today. My name is Misty Kelso and I work as an operations manager at Watergardens, where I serve women and children experiencing homelessness, addiction, poverty, grief, and some of the hardest circumstances imaginable. But I am not here today as an academic or a public policy expert. I'm here as someone who has lived the realities we are discussing, and I now get to watch it play out in the lives of the women I serve every single day. I know what it feels like to be stuck.
I know what poverty feels like, not as a statistic, but as a mother trying to make ends meet when there simply isn't enough. I know what it feels like to depend on government assistance. I know what addiction feels like. I know what it feels like to make choices that hurt yourself and the people you love. I am four years into a life I once wasn't sure I would have, and that is why I believe so strongly that people need more than a roof over their head.
I've learned from experience if we want people to actually change their lives, we have to help them get out of survival mode first, because you cannot expect someone to build a future when they are completely consumed with surviving today. When someone is worried about where they're going to sleep tonight, how they're going to feed their children, whether they can get to work, or whether they are going to lose everything because of one unexpected bill, their brain is focused on survival, and survival doesn't leave much room for healing. Through my work and own experience, I have come to believe that poverty reform has to recognize the whole person. There are four things every person needs and deserves: relationship, redemption, hope, and human dignity. Relationship: every person is meant to be with another.
People are not created to live in isolation. When someone is struggling with poverty, addiction, homelessness, or trauma, isolation often makes everything worse. People need healthy relationships. They need community. They need someone who knows their name, knows their story, believes in them, and is willing to walk beside them.
That doesn't mean removing accountability. In fact, healthy relationships provide the accountability people need to change. Redemption: every person is meant to be with God. People are more than their circumstances, their mistakes, or their addictions. There is a spiritual component to restoration that cannot be ignored.
For us, that means helping people understand that they have value, that they are loved by God, and that their past does not have to define their future. Hope: every person should see an end to his poverty. Hope is more than simply telling someone that things will get better.
Real hope means being able to see a path forward. A person needs to be able to look at their life and believe, I can become something different. I can work, provide for my children, have a home, rebuild relationships, live independently. If someone cannot see a way out, it is very difficult to ask them to keep moving forward. Human dignity: every person is a noble creation.
The women we serve are not problems to be solved. They are people. They are mothers, daughters, sisters, employees, neighbors, friends, and future leaders. Sure they have made mistakes, but their mistakes do not erase their dignity. Poverty should never cause us to see a person as less valuable.
At Water Gardens, I get to see women take those steps. I get to see someone who walked through our doors defeated begin to stand a little taller. I get to see women learn how to show up, keep commitments, take responsibility, work through conflict, and begin believing that they can actually build a different life. That is why I believe effective poverty reform has to address both the person and the barriers around them. We need to provide stability without creating permanent dependence.
We need accountability with compassion. We need opportunity without ignoring the realities people are facing. And we need to recognize the dignity and potential of every person we serve. So I'm not here today to tell you that one program or one solution will fix poverty. I'm here to tell you that people need a bridge.
A bridge from survival to stability, from stability to healing, from healing to work, and from work to independence. That bridge has to be built on relationship, redemption, hope, and human dignity. I know what it is like to need that bridge, and now I have the privilege of helping build it for someone else. When I look at the women we serve, I don't see statistics. I see mothers and daughters and women who have made mistakes.
I see women who have been hurt, and I see women who still have potential. They don't need us to lower the expectations for their lives. They need us to help remove the barriers that keep them from reaching those expectations. Because poverty does not have to be someone's permanent identity. People can heal, work, and recover.
People can experience redemption. People can have hope. And every person deserves to be treated with dignity along the way. I know, because I am one of those people. And every day, I get to watch other women begin that same journey.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Kelso. Now recognize Ms. Rowe-Finkbeiner.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Thank you, Chairman LaHood and Ranking Member Davis, for the opportunity to testify here today. As you heard, I'm Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director of MomsRising, which has a total membership of 3.7 million who live in every state and are working to help build a nation where families can thrive. We're grateful for this opportunity to bring the voices of millions of moms into this room today. And at MomsRising, we hear from moms every day that they and their families are working hard, playing by the rules, and yet still cannot make ends meet as the cost of raising children is skyrocketing. A pound of hamburger now costs more than you get paid for an hour of wages at the federal minimum wage.
Less than half of Americans can now afford healthcare. Childcare now costs more than college and more than rent in 17 states. And gas, housing, and aging and disability care are mind-bogglingly expensive. Families need the wages of moms more than ever just to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of their children. And now three-quarters of moms are in the labor force.
But hardworking moms are being forced to make unacceptable choices. Moms like Nicole in Florida, who skipped her colonoscopy that her doctor says she urgently needs in order to pay the pediatric bills for her three children. And right now, we're hearing from more and more moms that they're feeling the squeeze of huge increases in costs after the Republican majority slashed one trillion dollars from Medicaid, cut SNAP by 187 billion, and refused to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
And then instead of fixing the crisis that families are facing, they have now poured more than 240 billion into militarized immigration enforcement without guardrails to protect our communities. Our nation absolutely needs a safe and orderly immigration process that balances compassion and security, but not cuts to healthcare and certainly not cruelty. The current family affordability and healthcare crisis are not a question of resources, they're a question of priorities. That 240 billion dollars would cover Medicaid for almost 30 million people. The daily cost of the war in Iran alone could cover the daily healthcare costs of the 15 million people who are expected to lose Medicaid and also cover the SNAP benefits for all 41 million Americans who rely on it.
The tariffs have cost each US household 1200 dollars a year. The resources are there, the priorities are wrong. In this high-cost environment, TANF needs improvement. It has been frozen at 16.5 billion dollars per year since it started in 1996, losing more than half of its value to inflation. And the bureaucratic barriers to the program are much too onerous.
Fewer than one in four families in deep need receive TANF. But repeating TANF's mistake by pretending that cutting programs make families stronger is not the answer. Moms of all political parties are struggling as Republicans' signature bills have cut off millions from healthcare and limited food access. They've also blocked care policies, caused costs to skyrocket, and allowed TANF to become outdated. Fortunately, solutions are possible.
We urge Congress to recognize what 30 years of experience has taught us. If we want parents to work, we have to make it possible for parents to work, to get healthcare, and to thrive. That means cash for people to put gas in the car, to buy diapers, and to access childcare. That means paid family medical leave when a new baby arrives or a serious health crisis strikes. That means living wages so care workers can stay in their profession.
That means the fair treatment of immigrants who are critical to our care workforces, our businesses, and our communities. It means healthcare coverage that families can rely on, accessible maternal healthcare, affordable elder and disability care, food assistance when times are hard, and a child tax credit that allows families to afford the enormous and rising cost of raising children. These aren't alternatives to work. These are what makes work possible. We hear from moms every day about this and we have a whole book of stories to share with you on this too.
Moms know the value of work because moms work all the time, whether that work comes with a paycheck or not. We don't need our government withholding food or healthcare from our children to motivate us to work more. The idea that taking away a family's resources to buy diapers, school supplies, groceries, or pay rent or healthcare coverage will somehow miraculously make childcare more affordable or replace the need for paid family medical leave or turn a low-wage job into one that supports a family is simply ridiculous. It doesn't have to be this way. Opening avenues for moms to thrive opens doors for our economy to thrive.
One key study found that better care family policies would actually increase our country's long-term real GDP growth by 10 to 15 basis points, and all of the programs that I mentioned today have extraordinarily high return on investments. In short, when moms do well, our nation does well. Lifting families lifts our entire economy. And strengthening the programs that allow moms and families to thrive is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do for our nation as a whole. Thank you.
Darin LaHood
Thank you, Ms. Rowe-Finkbeiner. We appreciate all of the testimony we heard today from our witnesses and now we'll proceed to question and answer session with our members here today. I'll now recognize myself and Ms. Kelso, I'm going to start with you. First of all, thank you for sharing your personal story and your journey that you've been through and how passionate you are about the work that you're involved with. One of the things that you mentioned in your written testimony was reconnecting with your own children as part of your recovery process.
And can you talk about the role that the Family Hope Center played and how those influences helped with your relationship with your children today?
Destinee Kelso
Um, so I did, I lost custody of my children, um, and they terminated my rights and my job that I work for now, they walked alongside me through that whole journey. Um, they went to court cases with me. They just encouraged me not to give up. Um, after they terminated my rights, they were the community that, um, uplifted me and, um, really gave me the strength to keep going.
Destinee Kelso
The relationship today, so I'm actually adopting, um, my 17, who just turned 17, my 17-year-old back from the state of Missouri, which is unheard of. And Thursday they signed guardianship to my 13-year-old to me. Um, so it's been an amazing journey.
Darin LaHood
Well, congratulations. Very happy for you. Yeah. Um, well, thank you very much. I'll now turn to Mr. Winship.
Mr. Winship, one of the things I find concerning is economic indicators that suggest that programs like universal basic income lead to a decline in work. There was a report by the CBO, Congressional Budget Office, in 2025 that found more Americans were dependent on welfare checks at the expense of work and how low-income families are becoming increasingly dependent on government transfers. Can you talk about the expansion of spending on anti-poverty programs since 1996 and how that has impacted trends in work among low-income households?
Scott Winship
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question. So, as I think you or Chairman Smith mentioned, currently the safety net has over 80 programs that are serving low-income people. We spend at the federal level, not even looking at what states spend, over a trillion dollars a year on anti-poverty programs. That number's gone up by about a quarter of a trillion just since 1996. Now some of those programs are work-encouraging.
The Earned Income Tax Credit, the additional Child Tax Credit, those are conditioned on having some earnings. So those are actually helpful, I think, for helping more people become independent. But others are not conditioned on work. That would include the SNAP program, which food stamps is how most people know it by, which until OBBBA had, you know, very minimal work requirements to it. So in some ways, all the trends that I recited are trends that occurred despite kind of an anchor holding back the reforms to TANF because we have all these other programs that retain work disincentives and marriage disincentives.
So that's a big problem. The other thing I want to address related to the calls for basic income, there are really interesting experiments that are happening. One of the best ones was done by the Open Research Guaranteed Income Study, which gave $1,000 a month for three years to folks in Illinois and Texas. What that study found, actually, is that employment dropped by four percentage points for the people that got the additional benefits. If you look at how much people reduced their non-transfer income for every dollar that they got in the guaranteed benefit, that was 28 cents.
So for every dollar of this guaranteed basic income, they earned 28 cents less. If you look at families without a college education, that number is 44 cents to the dollar.
So there's, you know, there's not any doubt at all that we have to be really careful about how we design these safety net programs because some of them really can discourage work and be counterproductive in the end.
Darin LaHood
Thank you for that. Ms. Hanks, in your testimony you shared how you started out as a social worker in 1996 and decided to leave after feeling like you weren't actually helping anyone. Can you describe what it's like working as a social worker when these welfare reforms were happening back then and how that compares to what you're doing today at the Elm Foundation?
Kim Hanks
Yes, sir. When I was working, I was actually working for the state of Alabama when that occurred. We were grateful for the reform. We knew that it would help the individuals that we served. What I saw was individuals in my caseload that now had the work requirement, lots of them found it wasn't necessary to receive the AFDC or TANF anymore.
I was absolutely shocked at that, but I think that might explain some of our numbers of yes, AFDC went down, but food stamps and other programs went up because it wasn't worth the effort to go out and satisfy. I literally had clients tell me that it wasn't worth the effort going out to satisfy the work requirement, that they would rather just give up the the cash payment. I didn't see that a lot, but I did see it. And again, I felt like, okay, well what we're doing here with these programs, we're not equipping people to become long-term steering their own ship, taking care of themselves, that it was generationally hurting people in my caseload. I will say that we do things extremely different at the Elm Foundation.
Like I said, we're effort-based. And I'm not talking always being employed 20 hours. We're talking effort. Sometimes a client comes in and at that moment and where they are in their circumstances, the amount of effort they can give might be something as simple as going out and buying a calendar to keep in their purse. You know, we're starting with people where they are and helping them to become, you know, to have confidence that they know they can do more, both within work requirements, but also just life skills because sometimes a person doesn't know if they weren't given that they weren't given those confidences from their family, then it's our caseworkers that provide that for them, the support and the the moral support that they need.
Darin LaHood
Thank you for sharing that, Ms. Hanks. I'll now turn to Mr. Davis for his questions.
Danny Davis
Thank you very much, Chairman, and let me thank all of the witnesses for their expert testimony. I really felt enlightened listening to the different concepts and ideas and beliefs and experiences. What what could these dollars have done for the moms that you represent?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Thank you so much for that question. I happen to have a list. The members of MomsRising are Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians. They live in every state and every congressional district. And we hear from them every day that what they want and need is healthcare and nutrition access because as I shared more than half of Americans can't even afford healthcare anymore.
They need paid family medical leave when a new baby arrives or a serious health crisis strikes. How many people here know that we are one of six nations on the entire planet Earth that don't have that for new parents? It's ridiculous. It's costing 34 billion dollars a year due to lack of access of paid family medical leave because parents are pushed out of the labor force just in times of need. We need maternal health programs.
The United States now has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation in the world. That is not okay. And Black women are three times as likely to die in childbirth as white women. And maternal care deserts now exist in more than 35% of counties, including 56% of rural counties. We need affordable, accessible, high-quality childcare.
Nobody should pay more than 10 dollars a day for their childcare. We need access to living wages for childcare workers, many of whom are moms, including my own mom. We need expanded CTC, SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, and EITC to make sure families get the stability they need to get through difficult periods. This all saves taxpayer dollars in the long run. They don't just lift families.
I'm going to share a couple return on investments. SNAP: Republican economists estimate that for every 1 dollar into SNAP, taxpayers get back 1 dollar 80. Childcare: For every 1 dollar into childcare, taxpayers get back at least 7 dollars and some studies show more than 20 dollars for high-risk kids. The CTC, the child tax credit: For every 1 dollar in, taxpayers get back as low as 8 dollars but as much as 15 dollars. Why?
Because these programs are opening the door to independence, to responsibility, to accountability, and to freedom and choice of how we raise our children and go to work. These programs are critical and they should be funded instead of cut. Thank you so much for your question, Mr. Davis, Representative Davis.
Danny Davis
Thank you and let me ask you, do you think that additional penalties and paperwork and proof stimulate or motivate individuals to become more actively engaged in seeking work?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
That's an excellent question and there's a lot of controversy surrounding moms and work. And I'll just say all moms work. I'm going to say that right now. Caring for children is often treated as not working when a mom does it herself, but the moment she needs someone else to provide that childcare so she can go to a paid job, we recognize it for what it is: work, expensive work. As I mentioned, childcare now costs more than college.
Moms know the value of work because they are working all the time whether that work comes with a paycheck or not. And we don't need someone again withholding food or healthcare coverage to motivate us to work more. Programs like the CTC and TANF, which get cash to families, are so effective because they allow us to make the decisions about our families. We were talking a minute ago about some pilot programs and waiting for some return on investments to come in and I want to share a pilot project in Michigan that is doing quite well: Rx Kids, in which moms receive a lump sum of 1500 dollars during pregnancy and then 500 dollars a month thereafter. This provides life-saving financial security that is universal and unconditional.
Importantly, the return on investment for Rx Kids already is for every 1 dollar in, taxpayers are getting back 4 dollars back.
These programs are also resulting, importantly, in a 50% lower maternal mortality rate. Remember, we have the highest maternal mortality rate of any of the developed nations. These are lowering maternal mortality rates. They're boosting our economy. They're lifting families, and they're opening doors to the opportunity to opportunity for everyone.
Thank you.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Davis. Pursuant to committee practice, we'll now move to two-to-one questioning. I recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Carey.
Mike Carey
I want to thank, thank you, Chairman LaHood and Ranking Member Davis, for holding this hearing to fully understand all the issues that we have before us. But I also want to thank the witnesses for being here. We have Mr. Damshroder from the great state of Ohio. He's the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. And you're the only, if I'm correct, the only state official here today.
And I'm going to focus a majority of my questions on you, being that you're from my home state and a Columbus native. He also went to the Ohio State University. People have heard me talk about that a time or two here. I want to give you a chance to highlight some of the, and I know we spoke earlier in my office, but if you'd be so kind, Matt, if you could just kind of highlight some of the initiatives that we in Ohio, we have been blessed. I mean, we talk about 30 years, and boy, it seems like it's gone in a blink of an eye, doesn't it?
But we had a tremendous governor in George Voinovich, who really led the charge. And now with Governor Mike DeWine and all of his initiatives. But Matt, if you could just maybe just highlight some of those things, please.
Speaker 18
Sure. Congressman, so I would point specifically to the Benefit Bridge program that we've developed in Ohio that I mentioned briefly in my testimony. And it was, you know, Ohio is one of the few states that is state-supervised, county-administered. And this idea actually came from some of our counties and the caseworkers who were working with individuals on public assistance. And what we often heard was that individuals on public assistance lack the networks of support.
And so by creating this program, we matched individuals or participants with peer mentors, connected them with financial literacy training, and also paired some state general revenue dollars with TANF for things that weren't eligible for the federal TANF purpose in order to help fill some gaps and really create an individualized plan to move off public assistance and towards independence.
Mike Carey
And Director, I mean, and for those who don't know Ohio geography, we have a very diverse state. And our home city of Columbus, Ohio, is the test market for every single food that's brought into market. But additionally our state, from Toledo to the Mahoning Valley, the Ohio Valley, the Miami Valley, the Queen City, and all points through Appalachia, we have different states that have different needs. So can you talk a little bit about ODJFS's role in establishing the Benefit Bridge program as you've highlighted, and what successes you've seen from allowing our counties, 88 in the state of Ohio, to implement it differently?
Matt Damschroder
So in a sense, the Benefit Bridge is kind of like a little PRWORA in the sense that we're taking these federal dollars and instead of having a top-down, one-size-fits-all state program to push out to our 88 counties, we're, you know, creating some guardrails, but we're letting each county kind of tailor their service delivery to their individual residents and their individuals on public assistance, really kind of putting the human back into human services, because individuals aren't a program, they're not an application, they're a person who has individual and unique needs different from the next person.
And so by giving the counties the flexibility and a little bit of extra state dollars, it really allows them to tailor the assistance that's needed for that household.
Mike Carey
And and I know that you've worked very closely with our Ohio Senator John Husted and my colleague Blake Moore from Utah on the Upward Mobility Act, which would give states more flexibility to work on these benefit cliff issues or numerous programs. And I know that the gentleman from Utah will probably address that. You want to talk about that maybe a little bit more?
Matt Damschroder
Yeah, so I think as we look at it, again, I mentioned that that people aren't programs. And as we've looked at it, individuals are often on many different types of public assistance programs. And all of those different programs from the federal government have different benefit cliffs, different eligibility rules, different definitions for what is eligible. And so I think one of the the opportunities that is available to the states should the Upward Mobility Act pass is to really kind of look at all of those things in a true continuum and align the different benefit cliffs to say, we're going to create this process where an individual is on these five programs and one falls off and then the next one falls off and the next one falls off and really create a program or a process for moving that person off.
Mike Carey
Director, my time is up and I want to thank you and I want to thank all your team that came in from Ohio and I appreciate your testimony. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Rudy Yakym
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today and thank you to our witnesses for being here. In 1996, Republicans led the way in reforming our nation's welfare system and creating the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF program. These welfare reforms translated to significant positive outcomes for beneficiaries. Labor force participation among never-married mothers rose almost 15% in four years. That led to higher earnings and a decline in welfare dependence.
While the creation of TANF was not a vast improvement from prior cash entitlement programs, there are still improvements to be made to ensure resources are reaching the most vulnerable in our communities. I'm proud to lead the Reducing Bureaucracy for Uplifting Families Act, which would reduce the maximum percentage of TANF funds that states use for administrative expenses from 15% to 10%. This frees up more funds to go directly towards services and support for families in need. Additionally, I believe we need to look at how we evaluate if programs are working and are they meeting the needs of the intended use. Mr. Damshroder, your testimony mentions that federal performance metrics impact what states prioritize, even if it may not lead to the best long-term outcomes.
Ohio is currently participating in a pilot program aimed at testing alternative outcomes-based metrics, such as improving employment and reducing reliance on federal programs. How have the changes in performance metrics impacted your work with beneficiaries?
Matt Damschroder
So Congressman, what one of the things that allows us to to do is is look at other other ways of approaching, you know, the return on investment other than just the work participation rate. And so part of what we've done with our Benefit Bridge program and also are doing with our TANF pilot is to kind of create a we're using a scoring method called the M-Path score where we'll survey the individual coming into the program, survey them at the at the end. It measures different things across I think five or seven domains. And instead of, you know, because our ultimately the goal is to move an individual and that household towards independence. And in some cases, especially for some of our individuals on our cash assistance program, you know, moving from 50% of federal poverty to 110% of federal poverty is a success story.
And so we also want to measure all of the other things that's happening in that person's life around work preparedness, financial literacy, family connections, and the like.
Rudy Yakym
Right. Thank you. And Ms. Kelso, thank you for sharing your incredible story about overcoming poverty and abuse, recovering from addiction, and rebuilding your family. I had a chance to review your testimony, your written testimony before you joined us here today and also had a chance to hear your opening remarks. And in that testimony, you shared that government assistance could not break you out of the destructive cycle you were in, but when you started working, it gave you purpose and dignity.
Would you say government assistance played a role in keeping you trapped in that destructive cycle?
Destinee Kelso
I would say that it did keep me stuck for a long time, especially living in like low-income housing and being engulfed in a community that was stuck in crisis mode. And honestly, it was easier to stay on dependence without looking at the barriers of being a single mom, of not having childcare, not having a car, not having community was a big one. And so when I started to work, I didn't have my children and I built the community that I needed to be successful that I am today.
Destinee Kelso
So I for a long time I seen work as just a way to survive. And when I started looking at work, like it gave me purpose and not I need to make money to take care of my kids, something inside my brain changed. And I started looking at, it really empowered me to want to do better in all aspects of my life.
Speaker 25
Do you feel like it gave you a level of dignity because you're able to actually do it yourself and provide for your own family as opposed to leaning on the government?
Destinee Kelso
Yeah, absolutely. And you know there is that cliff that a lot of single parents or parents worry about where you don't make enough money to survive. And honestly, with the job that I do have, Watergardens really taught me how to outsource that. I'm not good at just being an operations manager, I know how to cut yards or watch people's children. There's more to a paycheck than just going to one job every day.
And I had to learn that because it didn't, my brain wasn't functioned like that yet.
Speaker 26
Thank you for having the boldness, the courage, and the confidence to come here and share your story. I find it to be inspiring. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Judy Chu
Ms. Moore, you'll be recognized in a second here. I just didn't want to lose that moment. You'll have a, I'm going to recognize Ms. Chu for five minutes.
We've heard Republicans and one of our witnesses point to declining TANF caseloads after the 1996 welfare law as evidence that work requirements were successful. Ms. Rohfink-Biner, I want to challenge that definition of success. When a family disappears from the TANF rolls, that doesn't mean they've escaped poverty or that they are necessarily doing better. Now, Congress terminated the Aid to Families with Dependent Children federal income support and replaced it with TANF, and the share of struggling families receiving assistance did fall from two-thirds to less than a fourth. But what happened was that even though immediately afterwards child poverty did fall, in the long run, TANF contributed significantly to an increase in deep poverty among children.
And today, less than one in four families in deep need in America receive TANF. And in fact, a key reason for the lower caseload has to do with something called the hassle factor, and that was a term coined by the Heritage Foundation. They said the primary reason for TANF case closings nationally was the failure to submit paperwork, attend meetings, or meet other administrative requirements. It wasn't because families no longer needed that assistance. And doesn't that sound familiar?
That's exactly what Republicans have done with the big ugly bill, where new SNAP and Medicaid work requirements quickly have been kicking parents and children off their food assistance and health coverage. So Ms. Row-Finkbeiner, can you talk about the danger of measuring the success of these programs by how many people you can kick off of them, rather than whether families actually no longer need the assistance? And what does TANF's 30-year history tell us about what happens to the millions of families now losing SNAP and Medicaid under Republicans' big ugly bill?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
I sure can. I can also talk about the danger of measuring the success by the number of moms who are now in the labor force. The amount of money that it costs to raise children right now is $140,000 per family according to external analysis. That's $70,000 a parent. There are pressures on parents right now that are pushing parents into the labor force because the costs of childcare, healthcare, food, groceries, gas, everything are so high.
So to put the success of TANF measuring the amount of moms in the labor force is erroneous to the facts that are happening right now. Now, the lesson we should take from the last 30 years is that families need a care infrastructure, not because they lack responsibility or ambition, but because life happens. A baby is born. A spouse dies. A child or a parent gets sick, a job disappears, and childcare costs more than a paycheck, and gas is skyrocketing.
The question for policymakers right now shouldn't be how quickly we can take away assistance from families when those things happen. It should be how we open avenues for families to regain their footing, to care for their own children, to stay connected to work, to contribute to their communities, and to move toward greater economic security. Parents shouldn't have to be working more than one job. We have parents all over the country and even on this panel who are working more than one job. And you know what the job that is left behind?
Caring for our children, that's a job too. We need a care infrastructure so that we can take care of our children and provide for ourselves and live good lives. Having said that, building a care infrastructure isn't just about opening avenues for families to thrive, it's also about boosting businesses in the economy. It cannot be overlooked that in our consumer-fueled economy, women and moms are making more than 80% of the consumer purchasing decisions. We hold up the economy.
When we don't have funds to spend, everyone loses out.
Judy Chu
I wanted to ask you another question and that's about the barriers for parents to employment. And around the time of the TANF program being formed, people were described as lazy, dishonest, they were even called welfare queens. But what Americans need is the removal of barriers that stand in their way.
became a mother. She wanted to continue her career but infant and toddler care was so expensive she literally could not afford to work and she eventually relied on Medicaid and WIC but as you point out those programs weren't what kept her from working it was a lack of affordable childcare. So can you just say a word or two about what what problem does imposing a work requirement actually solve?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Yeah I mean she's an excellent story it's in my written testimony if people want to read the whole thing. Her income was gone because she was pushed out of the labor force because childcare cost more than her pay. And so when her family was struggling to make ends meet she turned to Medicaid and to WIC and those programs didn't keep her from working the lack of affordable childcare did. But because of WIC and Medicaid her child had food and healthcare while she was struggling. But her story doesn't end there.
This fall she was entering the workforce because her son is now eligible for New York City's universal 3K program. We're seeing here how childcare how paid family medical leave how all of these programs are on-ramps to the labor force and to opportunity and they need to be funded not defunded.
Max Miller
Thank you Mr. Chairman. Truly appreciate it. And thank you for the witnesses being here today and Ms. Kelso thanks for your personal story. It was very touching and things like that matter a lot so thank you very much. 30 years ago the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 replaced a flawed open-ended entitlement with a program built on a simple idea.
Work should be a part of the deal. The results speak for themselves. Welfare rolls went down 85% labor force participation among never-married mothers went up from 59 to 74% and real earnings roughly doubled. But 30 years later there's still much work to do. Cash assistance is now less than a third of spending down from over 70% in 1996 and HHS has found dollars flowing to households well above the poverty line.
Even college scholarships for six-figure earners with no federal requirement to track improper payments. That's why I co-sponsored Rep. Carey his Preventing Waste Fraud and Abuse in TANF Act. Work is one of the most powerful ways to lift people out of poverty and TANF proves it. SNAP and Medicaid never had work requirements as strong or consistent as TANF's and their own costs and caseloads have climbed steadily as a result of that which is why this committee acted through the Working Families and Tax Cut Plan. I thank our witnesses especially those with ground-level experience as I had mentioned earlier thank you very much and look forward to building on the real lessons of 1996.
Thank you. Director Damshroder Ohio is roughly one of only five states participating in the redesign TANF pilot to study work participation outcomes. What is Ohio doing differently under the pilot and how will you know whether families are actually becoming more self-sufficient?
Matt Damschroder
Congressman one of the things that that we're doing differently as a result of the pilot is improving the way that our county human services agencies work closely with the state's vocational rehab agency. And so in this case you know think of an individual who's receiving Ohio Works First cash assistance and as a part of the process you know an addiction is identified or a disability or something of that nature. So instead of saying simply alright we're going to waive the work requirements we instead make a referral to the Voc Rehab agency to have a conversation about what supports are needed for that individual in order to you know address addiction issues or what are the conversations that need to be had with an employer around accommodation or what do we need to do to help find an appropriate an appropriate employment opportunity.
Governor DeWine talks a lot about making sure that Ohio is a place where every individual can fulfill their God-given potential whatever that is for that person. And so I think what we have with the TANF pilot is the opportunity to be creative and individualized in helping that to happen.
Max Miller
Bam. It's awesome to hear. And it is incredibly heartwarming. I mean right now right support means a lot. And I know you and I have talked about it before in the past but overall you know being there for someone just to tell them hey you did an awesome job today right or give someone a pat on the back or a high five or shake their hand right.
And that's why I'm such a big believer in technical education because it gives that added level of support and care. So thank you for that answer. I'm going right back to you. I'm an Ohioan you're an Ohioan. Sorry witnesses I'll make it easy.
Director Damshroder again. Sir. Ohio has become a national leader in attracting businesses and creating jobs. How have the state's welfare and workforce policies helped support the economic growth and what lessons should Congress take from Ohio's approach to connecting people on public assistance with work?
Matt Damschroder
So Congressman so Ohio a number of years ago under Governor Taft combined the state's workforce agency and human services agency to create 25 years ago the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. And so what that means is in most of Ohio's 88 counties the the American Jobs Center is in the exact same building as the public assistance office. And so in most of our counties what we're finding as I mentioned in my testimony we're kind of moving towards a work first mentality is when a person comes in to apply for SNAP or Medicaid we do all of those things and work that process on the application to get them approved. And then as a part of that visit we you know take them by the hand figuratively and walk them to the other side of the building and say let's have a conversation about work and let's have a conversation about training. And one of the things that we've heard from our employers is that you know help a person with the soft skills necessary.
We'll train them for the job in our restaurant or our factory or wherever it is but help them with those soft skills. And so a lot of the things that we're doing around that training component isn't necessarily you know getting them a certification and a two-year degree right off the bat in advanced manufacturing but it's some of those initial certifications that are necessary to help get them in the door and get a toehold in a new career path.
Speaker 33
Bam. Thank you very much. Truly appreciate your answers. Thank you to all the witnesses. I'm over time.
I yield back. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Aaron Bean
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you. You'll always get to say from this day forward that time I testified before Congress. Good afternoon Ways and Means Subcommittee and to our all-star panel. Welcome to Capitol Hill.
That's what you'll get to to say. You can say you gave them the business. How about that? Let's talk about 1996. It was a year of big change in America.
Microsoft upended the word processing realm by introducing Word. How about this? The VHS VHS tapes market was rocked by the creation of the DVD. How about that? Forever changed.
And it changed again. How about that since then? And that was the same year that Congress says we've got to change welfare. It's not working. We went from welfare that incentivized government dependence having more babies out of wedlock intergenerational poverty rewarded that and changed the dynamic to empowerment putting people to work by creating the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
And the numbers I won't say what Congressman Miller just said but the numbers are fantastic. I mean we have really changed the directory.
And Ms. Kelso, you are one of the, the poster children of, of making that change. I've got a question for you coming up in just a moment. But the nature of government, I'll tell you, being in Congress, it's a constant state of what can we do better? What can we do better? So even right now, we've come a long way.
What can we do better and where do we go from here? I know the answer what it's not is blaming the other party. We're celebrating a creation of a bipartisan creation and the, the answer is not just going to point the finger and blame anybody. So but I want to look back and say, one of the challenges of creating a program that incentivizes work is, is trying to have, encouraging people to get to work and get them out the door and get them going, but yet they don't want to earn anything because they don't want to reduce their, their benefits. That's a, that's a very tough one.
So, toss up. I look at Ms. Hanks, you're nodding. Mr. Damshroder, Mr. Winship, you're ready to jump in. Who wants it? It's just a toss up.
What do we do? What's the secret sauce of, of incentivizing people to get out the door, get out there and go get them and start earning? Who say, what say you, Mr. Winship? What say you?
Scott Winship
Thank you for the question, Congressman. I, so I think to your point, benefit cliffs are a big problem. Even, even not the cliffs, just the fact that as you earn additional money, your benefit gets down, goes, gets reduced. That's a real work disincentive. There aren't great ways, I think, to, to deal with that by playing around with what that phase out looks like.
You know, you could, you could get rid of it and make it flat, and that's basically a universal benefit. Super expensive, plus now you're bringing middle class families onto the system.
Speaker 29
It's just tough, uh, it's tough. I know Ohio, what say you, Mr. Damshroder? Can you do it in 10 seconds? Is there a 20 second answer?
Matt Damschroder
Well, the short answer is, similar to, to the other witness, having programs that align to reduce those cliffs, I think is important. We saw it during the pandemic. We saw it when Governor DeWine expanded SNAP eligibility to 200% so that the government programs stop competing against the private sector for work.
Aaron Bean
I like it. No, I, I like it. Ms. Kelso, you have an incredible success story. You were at the bottom. You were at the bottom.
And, you bounced and you came up. I know your folks have to be really proud of you.
Yeah.
Aaron Bean
What you've overcome. They are. That's, that's fantastic. What's missing? Is there something missing in future welfare reform that we need to, to give?
I know there's benefit and I know we want to, I do also want to correct the record of the big beautiful bill didn't cut. Let's be sure. Let's be clear. It didn't cut healthcare. What it says is if you're able-bodied and can, you need to go to work.
And there's dignity in work. And you just said it, having a reason to get out of bed. So we didn't cut. We didn't cut these, these programs. Also moms are exempt.
If you have a dependent kid, you're, you're exempt from work requirements. You, you don't have to, to go to work. We all want to help the most needy. What ingredient are we missing, Ms. Kelso? Is there something else that in future welfare reform you think needs to be added to the mix?
Destinee Kelso
I think like really seeing people as a whole, not as a statistic. I'm really maybe trying to individualize what you're doing. Because if you look at somebody that is in that cliff and you look at the bills that are usually going out and what they're making, literally they're better off being on government assistance than, than not being. And so what do you do about that? That's the, that's the part.
Also mental health is a big thing. Addiction is a big thing. Trauma. But you guys can't force anybody to deal with those. So, our, I would say the United States might have some issues, but.
Aaron Bean
Ms. Kelso, thank you. We're proud of you and hope to chat further and build this recipe.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you so much.
Gwen Moore
Thank you all for being here. Mr. Winship, uh, your testimony starts out with welfare reform and its discontents. So I guess I would be that discontent, at least on this panel. I just want to make a point that Ms. Hanks, Mr. Damshroder, Ms. Kelso, Ms. Roe-Finckbeiner, all of your testimonies disagree with Mr. Winship. Did, am I the only person that's noticed that?
Even you, Ms. Hanks, you talked about being frustrated as a professional social work and not being able to help people. But now you're in a program where you can deal with people as individuals, and that's very expensive to deal with people and do an individual plan for them, you know, with your waiver to be able to do that, to be able to fill in the gaps. This person you're talking about who's a nurse, that's disallowed under most TANF programs. People can't, women can't go to college and still get daycare and food stamps and, and, uh, something. So that is a phenomenal story that many people will not be able to experience.
Ms. Kelso, I'm so happy, um, to hear about your story as well, but I, I appreciate your last comment that, you know, people cannot do this when they hit these benefit cliffs. I mean, Mr. Damshroder, you talked about somebody who has 110% of the poverty level and they're taking care of their kids and all of a sudden they're making $1,900 a month. And I live in Milwaukee, I don't live in Chicago or New York or LA, but if you're poor, you better be able to spend $1,400 a month on a unit in Milwaukee. And they made 1,900 and all of a sudden they now can't have SNAP. It's not true, uh, as my colleague indicated, that, that adults are exempt from work requirements if they have kids.
Now you can't get Medicaid. Now you can't, and as she said, you're better off not working. You get $1,900 a month because you're 10% over the poverty level for two people and all of a sudden, you know, you're getting evicted because, I mean, y'all do the math. The rent is $1,500 a month and you're getting $1,900, you know, and, and because you're working, you know, and work is not paying. Now, I, I have a question before I move on to ask Ms. Roe-Finckbeiner a question.
You said that wages for welfare recipients increased, they doubled. What, from zero to what? Double zero is still zero. What, what, what was the, you, you talk about the reduction of the caseloads, but you don't talk about getting people out of poverty. What is your evidence and your research that the wages that these women got got them out of poverty?
You didn't, you had a long testimony and you didn't, lots of numbers, 1.9 increase in, in employment versus over the decade, and then the next decade it was another 1.9. I mean, it's just, you know, I ain't smart as you, so I had a hard time understanding your point. Your point is that it accomplished what it accomplished because there were more Black women that didn't have out-of-wedlock births, but white women, it was okay for them to have out-of-wedlock births because they simply had delayed having kids.
Crazy testimony. But so you disagree with all the rest of these panelists that people need childcare if they're going to work. People need SNAP if they, if you can incentivize them and get them to work. People need healthcare. You disagree.
You're saying that this extra help that they get disincentivizes them to work.
Yes, sir, it is.
Scott Winship
So I think you characterized a lot of things that I actually didn't say.
Gwen Moore
Well, you just said race was a proxy, so you just talked about, I can go over your entire testimony, but we, but the chairman is not going to let me do it. But I read it. I'm a, I read it.
Scott Winship
Okay, so the point that I made in the paper, coming back to the point about whether caseload decline is the thing that we should care about, if the caseloads had declined as much as they did and poverty hadn't fallen or poverty increased, I would be the first person to be here saying...
Gwen Moore
Okay, okay, okay, Ms. Roh- Finkbeiner, because they're going to cut me off. Did poverty decrease as a result of welfare reform?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
The way TANF was implemented was different in every state, which makes it very difficult to get a standard ROI on what happened with TANF, which is why we have experiments happening right now, like in Ohio. What we do know is that the initial investment of 16.5 billion is dated. 1996, we learned we had what, VCRs happening, right? And we know that we've lost 50% of that influx of funds due to inflation. We know that TANF is outdated.
We also know that Congress did just cut a trillion from healthcare, Medicaid, and failed to expand and extend the ACA tax credits, which is pushing families off of healthcare, which is causing hospitals to close, which is causing children to not be able to get the care they need, moms not to be able to get the care they need, and many of those cuts are not expected to go into place until 2027. So we know we have a healthcare emergency, we have a family economic security emergency, we have an affordability emergency, and we thank the members of Congress like you who are standing up for families in this time of need.
Gwen Moore
And 100% of the job loss in the last quarter was women. And black women, the people who are having the babies, according to you, Mr. Winship.
That's just not true.
I got your testimony right here, sir.
Speaker 37
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, you are always so generous, and I appreciate your generosity, and I want to appreciate all of the testimony that we heard here today. Thank you. And I yield back.
Thank you. Now recognize Mr. Moran of Texas.
Nathaniel Moran
A lot of folks don't know much about TANF, and I hope they're learning more about it today and the things that we need to continue to improve on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all the witnesses here today to talk about this important topic of TANF. A lot of folks don't know that really the end goals come down to four things. We're trying to provide assistance to needy families with children so they can live in their own homes or homes of relatives.
That we're trying to end dependence of needy parents on government benefits through work. Hear me say that clearly. I think some of you have said that. We're here to end dependence on government. We don't want to increase dependence on government.
We want them to get prepared for a job and prepared for marriage. We want to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies and promote the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
Speaker 40
I've been talking about this for a long time. That fourth one in particular is really important to me. They're very worthy goals, all four of them, because ultimately what we want to do is restore dignity through work. Ms. Hanks, I think you're the one that said you can have both compassion and accountability. I love that.
I love the way that you described that because that is exactly spot on. So, Mr. Damshroder, I want to come to you first and talk about this fourth goal, the fourth-cited goal of TANF, which is to promote the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. In your written testimony, you discussed the work Ohio is doing to focus on TANF purpose number four, which I just cited for you. You specifically mentioned Ohio's fatherhood initiatives. Earlier this Congress, I introduced the White House Council on Fathers and Sons Act, which would establish a council responsible for coordinating efforts across federal agencies to address challenges faced by fathers and young men.
We've got one already established for women and girls, but I happen to think we shouldn't leave the dads behind. This council would also promote the important role that fathers play in families, critically important, to help address the rising mental health challenges facing men and boys, and to support the development of programs that help sons successfully transition into adulthood. I cannot tell you the number of times I have conversations with young ladies that are looking for real men in this world, and it's hard for them to find. So I'd sure like to help restore that role of men and fathers and sons in the family and keep that biblical institution of marriage really as defined by our Judeo-Christian heritage one at the front and center of all that we do because that leads to so many great positive outcomes in our nation. I'd like for you to elaborate if you could on the investments that Ohio is making in fatherhood initiatives, the impact that you're seeing from those investments, and how this committee can help ensure that other states have the tools and resources necessary to make similar investments.
Matt Damschroder
Thank you, Congressman. And I would really focus in on one particular organization in Ohio, a group that's in some of our larger metro counties called Dads2B. And they receive funding from our state fatherhood commission that is almost entirely funded with TANF. And as I mentioned kind of briefly in my testimony, what Dads2B helps those dads, sometimes married to mom, sometimes not, understand what their role is in helping mom during the pregnancy and afterwards. And so as I mentioned, some of the things that we talk about is the role of the dad in the household around smoking cessation and alcohol abuse and those kinds of things.
The role of the dad in helping mom get to prenatal appointments and all of the things that needs to happen post-delivery as well. And so what we have seen is some improved outcomes in communities that have high infant mortality rates. And we'd certainly welcome any member of the committee to come to Ohio, meet with Kim Dent, the head of our fatherhood commission, visit the folks with Dads2B and see firsthand some of the great things that are happening because of the investment of TANF dollars in this fourth purpose.
Nathaniel Moran
Ms. Roe-Finckbeiner, I want to just give you a shout-out to one thing that you said actually earlier. You said there's not a harder job, I think I'm quoting you right, than being a mom. And I'm going to agree with that. My wife and I are raising four kids together and it is a tough gig, but she's chosen to be a stay-at-home mom and there is no harder job than raising kiddos. It's very tough.
So for all those stay-at-home moms out there, a shout-out to them for the great work that they're doing at home. Ms. Kelso, for the millions of Americans who may be going through a difficult season similar to the one that you experienced, what would you want them to know about their own potential, their eternal value, and the importance of having someone believe in them?
Destinee Kelso
Not to give up. Sorry. Not to give up, that no matter how low you go, that there's always a way out if you put in the work and you believe in yourself and build community.
Speaker 38
Yeah, your story is truly inspiring. We thank you for being here today because I think in all of the data, in all of the discussion, we do not want to lose sight of the fact that there are wonderful, great stories like yours of people who faced challenges that said, "I'm going to overcome that challenge, I'm going to make different decisions, I'm going to reach the American dream in my life because I have value." And I want you to hear me say that I know you and every other person on this earth has equal and eternal value and a great calling in this life. We want them to achieve it, not to be restrained from it. So we want to make sure TANF works to that, to that end.
Thank you so much. I yield back.
Beth Van Duyne
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moran. Now recognize Ms. Van Duyne of Texas.
Thank you very much. You know, 30 years ago, Republicans led the bipartisan welfare reforms that ended the old entitlement without accountability programs and created the TANF program we've got today that has real work requirements and time limits on assistance. Work is dignity, independence, and the ability to chart your own future with a paycheck. And since these changes were made in 1996, caseloads crashed by 87%. These reforms recognized that a job is more than a paycheck.
Earnings and employment among single mothers rose sharply. But despite these enormous improvements, today we still have an accountability problem. As our witnesses have mentioned, the non-cash assistance and block grants that make up the bulk of TANF are not always tracked closely. And so I want to focus on the lack of real accountability with nonprofits and providers that take these dollars and sometimes just have nothing to show for it. And maybe these groups genuinely do want to help mothers and children, but the government hasn't done enough to make sure that their work is actually having an impact.
American taxpayers deserve to know that their money is helping families become self-sufficient and not being passed along through a bureaucratic web of nonprofits that are absorbing TANF funds year after year. In other words, we need to start measuring not just spending, but actual results. And I appreciate Ms. Kelso, you coming and you sharing that. You know, as a single mom myself, I moved out of my house when I was 17, I got two full-time jobs, and I was a single mom myself. I appreciate the fact that we are not just putting women in a position of being 100% dependent on the government.
Because it seems like that's what we're hearing, that they want free healthcare, they want free childcare, free supplies, free parental leave, give them a lump sum and then monthly stipends. Like, what is the incentive if you get paid to do that? What is the incentive to actually get a job where you can be successful, where you can put money away? It seems like all that they want them to do is basically act as if the government is their husband, that they are 100% on the government giving them handouts to be successful. It's the exact opposite of being independent.
What happened to that? Weren't we like independent women? But no, what we're going to do is keep women poor, keep women pregnant, and keep women getting a handout from the government. Is that what you wanted when you, you know, decided that you were going to become independent and a strong woman?
Absolutely not.
Speaker 42
So I appreciate your story and listening to that is not the way it has to be. Women can actually be very successful in the workforce. We are forces of nature. Moms can be great, you know, inspiration to their kids and show them that there is a way out through hard work. And, you know, we're providing them with work assistance, we're providing them with learning the skills, and we're hooking them up with jobs.
We just had one of our largest job fairs ever. We had 50,000 people who came out to our job fair. You want to know why? Because we had 670 businesses that were hiring 68,000 positions. This is what we've got in the state of Texas, and we had a lot of women coming out and getting jobs that day.
But I've got a question, Ms. Hanks.
Beth Van Duyne
You described the social service world as the wild, wild west. Nonprofits and agencies are offering the same services with no outcome tracking for the funds that they're receiving. TANF gives states a huge amount of flexibility in how they spend those dollars. If a nonprofit is receiving TANF money, what basic proof should that organization have to provide to taxpayers that the money is actually producing a result and not duplicating assistance that is already available?
Kim Hanks
Well, I will give you my opinion for what that's worth. So we actually do have a mechanism to track, like I said, in Huntsville, Alabama. Now, not all agencies will avail themselves to that. Like I said, government agencies do not put data in that system. But what we are finding is there is a duplication of services.
I can tell you of one entity in particular that is a government agency that received the ESG funding, the CDBG, all those things, and are giving out payment, but the individuals are sometimes also going to private nonprofits to get the same assistance. That is a problem. It's a problem because, you know, it's not fair because we're not able to serve all the people that need the assistance. But it also is not fair to the nonprofits who are giving out money in good faith so that they are they think they're serving someone in an efficient way, but that's not happening. So we do have the mechanism to do it.
It's just that incentivizing everybody to do it is another thing. And that's where you guys come in.
Beth Van Duyne
Thank you. I've got a quick question, I know I have hardly any time, but Director Damschroder, Ohio's TANF pilot program moves away from the old way of counting work activities toward actual employment and earning outcomes. How are you making sure that the nonprofits and community providers you work with are held to those same standards so that taxpayer dollars are actually reducing long-term dependence?
Matt Damschroder
So ultimately, quickly, most of the entities that are doing that case-level work within the TANF pilot are actually our county Job and Family Services offices. In some cases, they're working with a Goodwill, Catholic Social Services, and others to provide some of the services. But most of the situations, it's our county Job and Family Services folks who are actually doing that case-level work and making referrals and, in some cases, actually managing the community engagement activities.
Suzan DelBene
Thank you, Mr. Van Duyne. Now recognize Ms. DelBene of Washington.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. And I want to spend a special thank you to Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the fantastic leader of MomsRising and also a constituent of the First Congressional District of Washington. It's great to see you. As we mark the 30th anniversary of TANF, we should use this moment for an honest reflection on the economic realities of the people the program is meant to support.
Hardworking families are facing higher costs for food, housing, healthcare, childcare, and they deserve greater access to opportunities that promote economic mobility and financial stability. And for me, this work always comes back to a very core question: are we building an economy that actually works for families, families all across the country? When families are stretched thin by rising costs, and many of these rising costs the direct result of policies put in place by Republicans in Congress right now, those pressures directly impact whether parents can stay in the workforce, whether kids have stability, and whether our communities are thriving. And that's why I've long been advocated for important policies that help families, in particular the permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit. At its core, the Child Tax Credit reflects the simple value that every child deserves a fair chance to succeed.
And when we give families the tools to succeed, we see better outcomes across the board. The data is clear. And we see our children doing better, parents staying in the workforce, our economy growing stronger, and we actually save money. If you care and are fiscally responsibility and look at that, we save money. So I wanted to ask Ms. Rofing-Byner, you noted in your testimony that when Democrats expanded the child tax credit, it helped families afford essentials like childcare and groceries and enabled parents to stay in the workforce during difficult periods.
Based on what you're hearing from moms across the country, would restoring a fully expanded monthly child tax credit help parents remain in the workforce, stay financially stable, and help make sure our kids are getting off to a great start? And if so, how is that doing?
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Absolutely. We've seen that when we had the expanded child tax credit monthly payments that doors were opened to opportunity. It was not a reason to stop working, it was a path to working and to success. It was money for childcare so a parent could go to work. It was money for gas to get to a job, money for rent, school supplies, the unexpected expenses that can be thrown to already tight family budgets.
Take the example of Amber, a MomsRising member and mom of two in New Hampshire, who experienced that firsthand. She ran an in-home childcare business until her landlord sold the building where she both lived and worked. It cost her both her home and her livelihood all at once. She began delivering groceries to earn money while her family was unhoused. The monthly child tax credit helped her pay for the gas that she needed to make those deliveries and earn an income while also helping her daughter to get to multiple medical appointments each week.
For Amber, the support wasn't a substitute for work, it helped her work. That's the lesson that we should take from the last 30 years. Families need a care infrastructure not because they lack ambition, but because life happens. The question for policymakers should not be how quickly we can take assistance away from families when life happens, it should be how we can open avenues for families to thrive. Now, you mentioned something really important and I found a stat that I just loved about the CTC, which is that some estimates indicate that making the CTC expansion permanent would cost us $97 billion per year, but it would generate social benefits with net present value of $982 billion per year.
Opening avenues for families to thrive opens avenues for our economy to thrive too, and we need to do better for our families. TANF is 30 years old, our social network needs updating. I just want to mention one thing about the idea about the government being our husband and I would like to share that not once have I heard from any member of MomsRising that they would like to be married to the government. But what I have heard is that they would like healthcare and they would like paid family medical leave, which Congress actually has. And so when I was getting ready to come here to fly across the country to come here, I wanted to pick up this suit, it's a really cute suit, I think so.
And when I went to the counter, I went up and they said, "Kristin, are you going to a wedding?" And I was like, "No, I am going to Congress." And they said, "Well, what the heck are you doing there?" And I said, "I am talking about welfare reform actually." And they said, "Really, could you please bring a message from the people of Washington that if we can have Congress have access to healthcare all the time, then we should have access to healthcare all the time."
And if Congress can take paid family medical leave when they get sick, as they do, then we should get the same. This isn't about disempowering people, this is about opening avenues for everybody to be able to do their job, raise their families, and thrive. And I just had to come in on that, so thank you for letting me share my suit story.
Randy Feenstra
Thank you Chairman LaHood and thank you Ranking Member Davis for holding this hearing. It's a very important hearing. And I just want to also thank our witnesses for your testimony. I'm impressed with what you're doing in each state. Ms. Kelso, I'm impressed.
You're an amazing person, you truly are.
You know, TANF reforms have helped millions of people. And our whole goal should have been, and it's been over decades, right, of taking welfare and getting people to work. That's what we want to do. That should be our goal. Ms. Finkbiner, you just said it.
You know, we don't want to be married to government. I mean, no one wants that. Right? No one wants that. We want to get people where they can have a purpose, a purpose in life.
When a purpose happens, it's usually through work. It's through achieving things. Ms. Kelso, you sort of noted that, right? I mean, you get purpose when you have a job. So we have a lot of things that we can continue to work with with TANF.
It's interesting that the GAO has plainly said that weak safeguards make TANF easy to abuse yet. And that means that people are misusing money, and that goes with money being lost that is not helping people that really need it, families that really need it. When we talk about work lifting people out of poverty, you know, it's sort of this accountability, as you noted, Ms. Hanks, accountability and compassion, how they both work together. And we have to have both. And as a federal government, that's what we have to look at and direct our thoughts on how that gets done.
So, Director Hamshroder, I just want to talk to you about what you're doing in Ohio, the pilot studies that you're doing, replacing old participation work rates with real employment and earning outcomes. How has that changed caseworker behavior? I'm sure all of a sudden your caseworkers have changed, right? They had to go through the process. So what lessons can we as Congress learn?
So I always look at these states as incubators. You're an incubator state. How can we take what you have learned and pass it on to other states?
Matt Damschroder
Congressman, so I would say what it's what we're learning, because we're just starting. But I think one of the things that we expect will pay dividends is we have made a huge investment around human-centered design. And so spending a lot of time actually talking to the individuals and the households and the families who are on public assistance and actually talking to the nonprofits that support them to find out what are the things that we are that you need and what are the things that government is doing that we need to stop doing and get out of your way in order to do. So that's, you know, the human-centered design component has been a big piece because ultimately, you know, ordinarily we have these, you know, intense frameworks of government programs, applications and eligibility and the like, and we do a lot of box checking. But really the goal of our pilot is to say, you know, we still have the accountability, we still have the eligibility, we still have the safeguards, but what are the things that people actually need in their individual lives?
Randy Feenstra
Creating independence then, sort of, and individual for each one, probably each program is different, specialized for each family or each individual. Is that a fair statement?
Matt Damschroder
That's exactly right. And at some level, it's kind of putting the social work back in social work and the human back in human services and really, you know, again, move from a transactional activity to something that we hope is transformational.
Speaker 43
So that probably inspires caseworkers. I mean, it gives them value also, seeing the fruits of their labor.
Absolutely.
Randy Feenstra
So how, if so you go county by county, do you see differences? Obviously, you have different demographics in each county, a different, you know, a lot of different things happening. I mean, do you see where some counties some things work and some things don't? I guess I'm, the reason I'm asking that, so a federal mandate, one size fits all never works. We know that.
That's why we love states to do this. But how can we look at county by county and the different demographics and how we can make changes? I mean, does AI, would that help, or I'm just brainstorming.
Matt Damschroder
Well, I mean, at some level, what we're doing, as I mentioned, it's kind of a continuation of TANF generally is to give flexibility ultimately with the goal of helping individuals around these four purposes. And so for us, you know, we spend a lot of time, and as I mentioned, kind of part of the idea came from county caseworkers. And so, you know, giving them the flexibility within guardrails. And what we've done is we've iterated a little bit after a couple years of doing the Benefit Bridge to turn it into the TANF pilot. We've, you know, identified some things that are more useful than others, some ideas for how to leverage something in a different way.
And so we have the counties sharing that information across with each other. And again, some counties, small counties, you know, it's the county caseworker who's doing all the work. Some of our larger metros, they're bringing some of the nonprofits into that space to give them a hand.
Randy Feenstra
Well, thank you. Ms. Hanks, I don't have any time left, but I wanted to ask you about individualized plans. So I give you 10 seconds. What do you, how do you see individualized plans, what you're doing in Alabama?
Kim Hanks
Yes, so I can speak to the Elm Foundation and every person has an individualized plan based on what they, what their needs are and what their aspirations are.
Making a difference.
Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Randy Feenstra
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for each witness. Thank you. And again, Ms. Kelso, kudos to you.
I yield back.
Darin LaHood
Thank you, Mr. Feenstra. Now recognize Mr. Moore of Utah, who's not on the subcommittee, but thought it was important enough for him to be here, and so he's waived onto the subcommittee today. You're welcome, Mr. Moore. Thank you.
Blake Moore
Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate being let back on the committee that I love so much and to rejoin for the day. I really do appreciate it. Ranking Member Davis, appreciate your organization and getting us to be able to have this, this hearing today. It's a hugely important hearing.
But even more importantly, I want to thank my good friend from Wisconsin, who's now going to look up and smile at me. Yeah, we're, we share the same surname, but very close friends. I have a sincere ask for you. I won't put you on the spot, but I do have a sincere ask. And because it's been brought up several times today.
Ms. Kelso, I think you actually hit it home the best. You got a little frustrated when you were talking about like, the answer's right there. Like, we cannot have these cliffs happen and then disincentivize people from being able to, to, to bring themselves out of the situation and, and, and use the programs that we all want to have. We all want welfare programs to be an opportunity to assist somebody to become self-sufficient. Like, I honestly don't think any single person in this, particularly in this committee and in our larger committee, truly wants that.
The Upward Mobility Act. So, we know that work is the most powerful way to move out of poverty and reforms to our welfare systems 30 years ago made meaningful strides to uplift recipients to self-sufficiency. But these programs are still not perfect, as we would all agree, and in some cases, benefit cliffs prevent those trying to work from taking that next job or promotion. It is a real tangible hindrance to coming out of it. So to combat this, I introduced the Upward Mobility Act with Senator Husted, which would create a pilot program for states to combine funding from multiple federal anti-poverty programs, including TANF, into a single funding stream, reducing bureaucracy while providing for immediate needs of the vulnerable populations.
My ask to Ms. Moore, to every single Democrat on this committee, would you at least be willing to read this bill? Would you at least be willing to engage and consider signing on, because the intent was absolutely to be something that could move the needle in this regard? And I seriously would allow you to speak on this.
Gwen Moore
Oh, thank you for yielding, Representative Moore. If TANF had offered the ability for people to rise up out of poverty and be lifted out of poverty through this programming, they would have stormed the White House and demanded it. But it doesn't. The program has always worked the way Mr. Wenstrup says it ought to, it incentivizes you, forces you to go to work, and as soon as you make one dollar over the poverty level, you no longer have any other help.
And it's an unsustainable model. To hear Ms. Hanks talk, Mr. Damshroder, I mean, that is very expensive to give people one-on-one help. But that's what does it. Everybody who has succeeded, Ms. Kelso has had someone who gave her wrap-around services, and she was not trying to figure out how to pay the rent while she was getting treatment. I yield back.
I yield to you.
Blake Moore
The flexibility provided in the Upward Mobility Act is sincerely trying to accomplish what we all want to do with respect to benefits cliffs. The bill has support of Utah's Governor Cox, Ohio's Governor DeWine. I'd like to also enter into testimony from Nick Dunnan, senior fellow at the Sutherland Institute, on the Upward Mobility Act.
Without objection.
Speaker 50
Thank you. As well as a letter from Americans for Prosperity highlighting the bill.
Without objection.
Blake Moore
Thank you. I'll read it today. Absolutely. It's a sincere request. I want to broaden this out so people can really...
I mean, we've talked, we've all talked about from both sides of the aisle and from the witness stand, like, benefits cliffs are a problem. And we can get past this if we would actually kind of get out of our own way and get out of our political mindset and our partisan mindset to look and say, hey, what is this going to accomplish? And giving the states some flexibility, running some pilot programs to see what could potentially work, and giving them that ability to do this is an option. So Director Damshroder, you might, you know, kind of echo that, but how can states use flexibility in TANF and other benefits programs to smooth the benefits cliffs so families are not penalized for earning more while still maintaining transparency and accountability?
Matt Damschroder
Congressman, so we're excited about the possibility of the Upward Mobility Act, and Ohio wants to be a pilot state if and when it's enacted. I think when we think about it, I think the opportunity is to look at the benefits programs as a linear thing to get a person off of public assistance and towards independency. Instead, what we have right now is just an aggregation of lots of different things that combine with all of their different benefits cliffs and all of their different eligibility rules to be a barrier, and a person says, there's no way I can get from here to there. If instead we can line all of these things up and have them fall off one by one as the person earns more because they're working. When Governor DeWine expanded SNAP from 135 to 200 percent, the pitch was to the legislature, the only way you get from 135 to 200 percent is by working.
If we can take all of these things and line them up and have individualized plans, yes, it's expensive, but it's worth it because they're Americans and they're our friends and neighbors and they're worth the investment.
Blake Moore
In your professional experience, do you think it's possible to strike that right balance?
Absolutely.
Thank you. Yield back.
Darin LaHood
Thank you, Mr. Moore. I now want to recognize Mr. Arrington, another member of the Ways and Means Committee who's not on this subcommittee but thought it was important enough to be here to hear from you. And so I recognize our budget chair, Jodey Arrington.
Jodey Arrington
I feel like I've been moved to the kids' table, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman. I'm looking for the corn dogs and waffle fries. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking Member Davis, for the opportunity to say a few words, ask a question or two. I really want to celebrate on a 30-year anniversary of Congress actually doing its job to find ways to make programs work better for the people they were intended to serve and the taxpayers who front the moneys to help their fellow Americans. I think welfare to work in 1996 was a success.
Let me give you a quote to kick this thing off. It's a good quote. The culture of welfare must be replaced by the culture of work. The culture of dependence must be replaced with the culture of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, and the culture of permanent assistance must no longer be a way of life. Ms. Roe-Finkbeiner, I hope I get that right, I apologize if I didn't, do you agree with that statement?
Just philosophically.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
I believe that we need a care infrastructure so parents can go to work, so kids can thrive, so care workers can stay in their jobs with a living wage, and so businesses don't have employee or supply chain disruptions.
Jodey Arrington
Do you think we should be moving people off of welfare to work as a, as an objective? I mean, it is after all a stated objective in TANF statutorily. Do you agree with that objective?
Jodey Arrington
Just a yes or no, I mean, it's pretty simple, straightforward. If you don't, that's fine.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Well, this is complicated. That's why we're still talking about it 30 years later. Everybody and every mom should be able to determine how to raise their kids. And that means that every mom needs to have the ability to have a job and to even be able to choose to stay home. And that means we need...
Jodey Arrington
Okay, let me reclaim my time. I appreciate the fact that you can't answer a very simple question. Maybe it is more complicated than I think it is, but that quote was from Joe Biden. That was Joe Biden in 1996. Bill Clinton had another statement that was very similar to that.
In fact, half the Democrats in the Senate at the time voted to pass the much-needed improvements to at the time Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The focus was block grants, it was state accountability and flexibility, but it was also and I think mainly this whole objective of ending dependence and trapping people in a cycle of poverty and welfare and putting these incentives for work for able-bodied adults. Do you believe able-bodied adults who are benefiting from taxpayer-funded social services should be working in some capacity? Do you believe yes or no? Some capacity.
I won't even put a benchmark on it.
Speaker 54
I like being a witness, I'm at the kids' table, I might as well be a witness too.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
I don't have a corn dog or waffle fry though. I'm so sorry. Do you think that we need a care infrastructure in the United States of America? Do you think that in order to work, people should have the foundation and the vehicles, literally the vehicles to get to work, like childcare?
Jodey Arrington
I think we have a trillion-dollar care infrastructure that's broken. And instead of it being a safety net, it's a hammock or a trap. And either one of those is not good for the human soul. And that's what I think about our care infrastructure. Now, I don't doubt that your intentions are to help people.
I have no doubt, just looking at you, listening to you, and watching you, you're just happy in your purpose. And that's a beautiful thing. But it's a simple question that I think many on the other side of the aisle can't answer directly. And it's unfortunate, and I think it's also very indicative of the shift in the Democrat Party. See, we passed, and I take it a little personally, I admit, because I mean, I was the author of the big beautiful bill.
I think we did some big and beautiful things. One of them was to restore the dignity of work by strengthening the work requirements in TANF and adding what we did in 1996 with the support of Bill Clinton and Joe Biden to the second largest means-tested welfare program or the largest rather in the country in Medicaid. But what I heard from my colleagues from start to finish and even now is that we kick people off of welfare, threw hungry people and their children into the streets.
That is patently false. That's a nice way of saying it. It was a fearmongering false narrative, tired talking point that we've heard for years. And we haven't been able to set the policy right for those who need it and those who are paying for it. And so, again, I think it's indicative of the shift in the Democrat Party.
I'm proud of the Republican Party that unilaterally basically took what was 1996 reform and applied that principle to today, our country, our citizens, those who need that safety net, that care infrastructure. It will go a lot further for the people it was intended for because of that policy. I'm proud of it. I know my time's expired, way over, and I'm so sorry. That's really, and I think we had a good dialogue here, but these are pretty straightforward questions to me.
I don't think they're that complicated. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Davis, thank you. Gwen Moore, my friend, I know she disagrees, I can see her up there shaking that head, and that's, that's okay. We're, I love you all, and I appreciate what you're doing and why you're doing it.
I just think it was overdue to do what we did in the big beautiful bill, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you.
Gwen Moore
Well, Mr. Arrington, can I just ask you to please don't offer any bills that would take healthcare away from me as a member of Congress? Please don't offer any bills that would take the plane ride, the transportation I need to get here, or the living allowance, since we haven't had a raise since I got elected 20 years ago. So, you know, I am alive today because I have great healthcare, diagnoses that might have been missed had I not had it, and I'm grateful for that. I'm really grateful for that. I had a baby at age 18, and she had an asthma attack when she was four days old.
And so I was really glad that I had Medicaid to be able to take her to the doctor. And she now has a master's degree in reading and is teaching children to read. So I think she was, she was worth it. And I think that...
Yeah, I think she's worth it.
Speaker 53
I was on welfare. Can I just engage in this colloquy for just a minute?
Yeah.
Jodey Arrington
Because I think that's also a beautiful and powerful story. And I think you're one of the strongest people, professionals, and members of Congress I have worked with, and very compelling, and a great advocate for your constituents. All that said, I'm not arguing with Medicaid and healthcare and all the other various TANF and other programs, although I have my views that it would be better meted out, administered at the state level, like the block grant per capita caps in Medicaid, we could debate it. I'm not talking about the care infrastructure necessarily in, in general, but specifically those who are able to work who are in that care infrastructure, who are benefiting, who are able to work, not the folks who are sick and pregnant and disabled, but the ones who work. That's all I'm saying.
And we didn't kick people off. We simply took what Joe Biden eloquently articulated as a, as a, as a good healthy responsible incentive and infused that into the largest means-tested welfare program that didn't get that same, didn't get that same adjustment for the better. That's all. I'm not, I'm not saying throw them all off, anything like that. That's the problem in this town is we all mischaracterize things too often, both sides.
And I'm 10 years into this, about to leave. I, I, I hate when we do that.
I'm going to miss you so much.
No you don't, no you don't.
I'm going to tell you, I'm tell you...
The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman, we're just talking.
It's over.
I know.
Darin LaHood
Well, we're just, you know. Look, well let me just interrupt. Mr. Arrington may not have gotten a corn dog, but he did get almost four minutes over his time. So, I'm going to conclude. Thank you, Mr. Arrington, for your very poignant questions and your commentary.
Appreciate that very much. Before I close, I want to recognize the ranking member, Mr. Davis.
Danny Davis
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis, thank you for that.
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I want to thank all of the witnesses. And I may not get an opportunity to say what I'm going to say because I'm leaving. And I have a staff person who's leaving the committee before I leave, William Miles. And so I wanted to thank him for his work and wish him well as he joins Representative Glenn Ivey.
But it's been great working with all of you on this committee. And no, it's just been good. It's been good. And my staff, as I said, you couldn't find a better group to work with. So thank you all.
Darin LaHood
Well, thank you, Mr. Davis, for that. It's been a joy to work with you on this subcommittee, you and your staff. And you will be missed. That's for sure. So thank you, Mr. Davis.
In closing, let me just thank our witnesses. We are grateful for your testimony here today. What you've added to this conversation, your experiences, your dialogue, the discussion today, it's been extremely helpful and fruitful for this subcommittee as we continue to work on ways to reform our welfare system. We congratulate everyone on the anniversary of welfare reform. And I think one thing that at least I take out of this today is work and the dignity of work can be so powerful for uplifting people out of poverty.
We've learned that over 30 years. And as we continue our public policy journey on how do we appropriately reform, make the welfare system more efficient, more effective, more accountable, and lift people out of poverty, your testimony here today, your answering our questions, extremely beneficial to the work that we have to do in the future. So we're grateful for that today. And our subcommittee will continue to play a key role in that. With that, please be advised that members will have two weeks to submit written questions to be answered later in writing, and those questions and your answers will be made part of the formal record.
With that, our subcommittee is adjourned.