Issues: Welfare Reform

“What we want to do is give the governors and the states through their legislatures the opportunity to address the needs of recipients in their own respective states under the theory that the states are the laboratory of democracy as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson.”

“It's clear that over the years welfare programs that were designed to be safety nets became spider webs. If we are going to help people out of that process it's going to require innovative thinking.” — Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson

Senator Nelson continues to work with a group of centrist Senators to advocate the next generation of welfare reform. The bipartisan effort aims to build on the success of the 1996 welfare reform bill by continuing the emphasis on a work-first approach.

Senator Nelson's major goals include demanding work from welfare recipients, strengthening families, and providing flexibility and resources for individual states.

Demanding Work
Senator Nelson believes that a successful welfare program must emphasize work first. Senator Nelson is a firm supporter of the idea that the best path to self-sufficiency is through work.

Senator Nelson's vision for welfare reform has several objectives that aim to increase the number of people moving off welfare roles and onto payrolls:

  1. Increasing work participation
  2. Provide childcare funding so that welfare recipients can go to work with out having to worry about quality child care
  3. Give states credit for moving people from welfare to work, not just moving people off welfare
  4. Create transitional jobs that allow people to work part time and have education and rehabilitation activities count towards work requirement

Strengthening Families
Senator Nelson believes that a strong family is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty and moving people from welfare to work. A new welfare reform bill must not only encourage work, but it must also encourage families to stay to together and provide assistance to families that do.

Senator Nelson wants welfare reform to promote strong families by:

  1. Promoting responsible fatherhood and married, two-parent families through the Challenge grant program for states and communities.
  2. Forcing Deadbeat Dads to work and pay child support, or go to jail.
  3. Preventing teen pregnancy by at least 25% over the next 10 years.
  4. Rewarding states that meet goals with bonus funds to continue their efforts.
  5. Improving child support enforcement by encouraging and coordinating the efforts of the justice department, child support enforcement agencies, employers, and others involved.
  6. Eliminating penalties for families where one of the two parents works more than 100 hours a month. This ends discrimination against two-parent families and provides incentive to work.

Providing Flexibility and Resources
Several of the Senators working to reform welfare, including Senator Nelson, are former governors who want to give states the flexibility and resources they need to reach performance based goal. Senator Nelson believes that in addition to providing the states resources, the states must be held accountable for results. Senator Nelson is seeking to develop legislation that will:

  1. Restore Contingency Fund that grants states extra resources in times of need. This will help make the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program recession-proof.
  2. Maintain the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Block Grant that gives states discretion in funding decisions.
  3. Restore Social Service Block Grant used by states to provide a variety of services including childcare for low-income families.
  4. Give states credit for working on all family oriented goals. Currently state money spent on teen pregnancy prevention and the goal of stable two-parent families cannot be counted towards state requirements on social spending.
  5. Restore supplemental grants that ensure adequate rural service essential to states like Nebraska.