Friday, June 10, 2016

GOP anti-poverty plans

"Because states can count declines in welfare rolls as increases in work, and because they can game the federal work requirements via various strategies, few of them have devoted much effort toward helping recipients become employed or more employable."

"Mead’s goal is to impose a kind of work requirement on noncustodial fathers in arrears on their child support through mandatory work programs. The intent is to help them develop skills and gain experience while promoting personal responsibility."

"This shift to services would also remove some of the incentives that lead states to shift families from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program to SSI (which is not block granted and is almost entirely federally funded) and that lead parents to prefer SSI to TANF (which, unlike SSI, has work requirements and time limits)."

"Finally, the blueprint advocates that housing vouchers be portable across public housing authorities, so that poor families can move to opportunity. This proposal draws on a growing recognition that residential mobility may be centralto economic mobility. The blueprint also calls for greater tenant involvement in public housing projects, and greater use of nongovernmental service providers."

"The blueprint calls for the use of “tiered funding,” whereby programs are categorized depending on whether they are new and untested, have demonstrated positive initial results, or have proven effective, with different levels of funding tied to each category."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottwinship/2016/06/07/the-ambitious-and-distinctive-house-gop-antipoverty-and-opportunity-agenda/#5a326d7e1eb0