Purpose: HHS is encouraging states to consider new, (click title to entry - thank you) more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment. Therefore, HHS is issuing this information memorandum to notify states of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families....
The majority of recipients are women with dependent children. The percentage is about 78%. So this is about putting women back to work. Or, as in some recipients case, to work for the first time.
The changes to the program came from the Department of Health and Human Services. It was not an executive order, it was from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
The REFORM to the USA Welfare Program known as TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) is to expand the possibilities of finding work for these families. The recipients are Heads of Households. They have a lot of responsibility. Their options for finding work can be limited by many factors, but, in considering the current economic recovery, the place where they would normally find jobs may be contracted. So, to facilitate their ability to find jobs in a timely fashion, Secretary Sebelius opened options to the States.
If the States are finding their recipients are floundering, they can institute programs that will work for their best interest. In other words, training programs in Technical Schools with programs such as computers, nursing, automotive technologies and others can provide not just a job, but, a career. There is nothing wrong with a woman on welfare completing a training program and beginning a career as a nurse that would pay more than $45,000 per year to start. It would be an overwhelming success and would insure the future of her children.
So, Secretary Sebilius did not simply eliminate the job requirement of TANF, she improved it along with the chances the recipients will have a better opportunity when moving off the program entirely.
The Romney attack on Secretary Sebilius is another attack on women and their families.
