Faith, innovation in welfare reform discussed at anti-poverty forum

Welfare reformers face all-too-familiar obstacles as America nears the 20th anniversary of its landmark welfare reform law, experts told a recent anti-poverty forum.

The federal government is still the major player in welfare services, but its 50-year, taxpayer-funded “war on poverty” has not had stellar results, experts told the Heritage Foundation’s fifth annual anti-poverty forum Thursday.

In 1965, the U.S. poverty rate was at 17.3 percent. In 2014, it was 14.5 percent.

Perennial obstacles include the welfare system’s tolerance of generational dependence and single parenthood, and its focus on distributing benefits, not helping people land and keep good jobs, said experts.

But “when you free people from welfare, they don’t just find a way to survive, they thrive,” said Tarren Bragdon, president and chief executive of the Foundation for Government Accountability, who cited several examples of men and women leaving welfare for jobs with good incomes.

States need to take bold actions and “create the pressure” for permanent welfare reform, Mary Mayhew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, told the forum.

Otherwise, it’s easy for state agencies to lose sight of their core mission, “which is to make a difference in the lives of the individuals we are seeking to help,” she said.

Pushing the envelope can be risky, Ms. Mayhew noted: Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who was homeless as a child and strongly advocates welfare-to-work programs, is encouraging people to have their photos put on their electronic-benefits transfer (EBT) cards.

The goal is to stop misuse of the cards — “EBT cards are constantly being confiscated in drug busts,” said Ms. Mayhew.

But instead of supporting Maine’s anti-fraud effort, the federal government sent “a cease-and-desist letter” and warned that the state’s federal funding could be lost, said Ms. Mayhew, who added that the state is still in discussions with the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the policy.

In Arizona, the local media has been critical of state lawmakers’ decision to cut the time limit for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) from 24 months to 12 months: They are “pressing the story line that we’re kicking these 1,700 families to the street,” said Timothy Jeffries, director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES).

But not only are these families still eligible for core support programs, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), they are being served by an invigorated DES, which has never been more focused on helping adults find and keep jobs, he said.

Republican Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Tim Scott of South Carolina offered encouragement for state and local welfare-reform efforts, especially those involving faith-based organizations. Other speakers discussed successful welfare-to-work programs, including one for people coming out of prison, and what the federal government might do to update its 1996 landmark welfare reform.

The forum closed with announcements of the 2015 Hope Awards for Effective Compassion — which included a $25,000 gift to Grace Centers of Hope, a faith-based nonprofit in Pontiac, Michigan, that serves people who are homeless and addicted — by Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of WORLD magazine, and Warren Smith, vice president of mission advancement at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.