Link to Senator Wyden's Statement

Wyden Places “Hold” on Welfare Legislation Threatening Oregon’s Budget, JOBS Program
House plan to extend “Temporary Assistance to Needy Families” would
cost state millions, end tailoring of programs to Oregonians’ needs

June 12, 2003

Washington– U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today announced his intention to block legislation that would force Oregon to spend millions of dollars to alter its successful family assistance and welfare-to-work initiatives. House-approved legislation extending Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits through September 2003 would allow Oregon’s TANF waiver, which lets the state tailor welfare programs to the needs of local communities, to expire on June 30 of this year. Oregon’s Department of Human Services estimates that it would cost $42 million more to operate a non-waiver TANF program for two years; in just the three months covered in the House legislation, the state would be forced to pay more than $5 million to alter its successful JOBS program and other initiatives that have slashed welfare rolls by 60 percent since 1994.

In keeping with his practice of publicly announcing any “hold” on legislation, Wyden placed a statement in the Congressional Record today to inform his fellow Senators of his intention to object to the House-approved version of the TANF extension when it comes before the Senate.

“Oregon’s TANF waiver has allowed thousands of Oregonians to leave welfare for work, and at a time when our state’s families need TANF assistance more than ever I don’t want to see Oregon’s waiver die,” said Wyden. “Ending Oregon’s TANF waiver does not make fiscal sense to me, it does not make policy sense to me, and I’m going to do everything within my power to block another blow to Oregon’s budget and to out-of-work Oregonians.”

The flexibility to run a successful TANF program is particularly critical to Oregon at present. The state has the nation’s highest unemployment rate at 8.1 percent; welfare rolls have increased from 15,887 to 19,176 families in less than a year even as benefits have declined.

A five year study by the Manpower Research Demonstration Corporation (MDRC) rated Portland’s JOBS Program model as one of the most successful in the nation. Specifically, the MDRC report found Portland’s program to be “unusually effective” and that it “produced the largest, most consistent increases on most measures of employment and earnings.” A recent National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services determined “[Portland, Oregon] achieved such success because it was able to continue education and training with other work-related services under a waiver that allowed Oregon to develop its strategy without federal mandates.”