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Lynn Swann: Welfare Recipients Must Work
Republican challenger Lynn Swann on Wednesday faulted Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell for Pennsylvania's failure to place more welfare recipients in work or training programs.
"I believe that we have a fiscal, social and moral obligation to send a strong signal - there is dignity in work," said Swann, who held a news conference in York with several state legislators as he continued a cross-state campaign bus tour.
A deficit-reduction law that President Bush signed in February renewed a requirement that at least 50 percent of families receiving cash assistance through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program participate in work, training or related activities.
The same law eliminated credits for reducing welfare caseloads that had allowed states to avoid the work and training quota since 1996. As long as caseloads were reduced by at least 50 percent, states did not have to comply with the work and training requirement.
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Now, states face an Oct. 1 deadline for meeting the quota - and possibly stiff financial penalties if they fail to do so. Most states fall short of the 50 percent mark, and Pennsylvania's 2004 rate of 7 percent was the worst in the nation.
Secretary Estelle Richman of the state Department of Public Welfare said it has moved aggressively this year to increase the proportion of welfare families involved in approved activities. The department has tightened accounting procedures and reached out to individual recipients and many of the firms that provide training and work experience, she said.
Of the 61,000 families receiving cash assistance in May under the federal program, more than 26 percent were employed or enrolled in training by the end of the month, she said.
"My guess is, by the end of June, we'll either hit or exceed 30 percent," Richman said.
Richman said she has ordered audits of department contractors to make sure that the ones that agreed to hire welfare recipients are living up to those agreements - a step that Swann also advocated.
Swann said he would take steps to ensure that waivers of the work and training requirements are granted only in exceptional cases. He also said he would review programs in states with high participation rates and seek to emulate them in Pennsylvania.
"Rendell boasts about lowering the commonwealth's unemployment rate, but he has failed to help the most vulnerable Pennsylvanians move into family-sustaining jobs," the former Pittsburgh Steeler said.
The state received a $719 million federal block grant this year through the federal program, which also provides subsidies for transportation to work, child care and job training. Failure to reach the work and training quota could mean the loss of $36 million in federal funds, officials said.
Richman said she is confident that this year's average participation rate will be at least 50 percent, citing tens of thousands of new jobs created under the Rendell administration.
"I don't give money back to the feds," she said.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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