Measuring success of welfare reform:

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

In 1996, Congress changed America's approach to helping needy families.

The program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children or AFDC gave way to a new program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or TANF.

Today, six years after that change in direction, Congress is preparing to reauthorize TANF. As it does so Congress and the public will engage in a debate over whether TANF has succeeded and how to measure its success in future years.

Like AFDC, TANF services are delivered by the states. Indeed, states have more discretion in making TANF work than they did under AFDC. So important parts of the debate over TANF's future direction will take place in state legislatures.

More criteria

During the first years of TANF, one of the major criteria for evaluating the program was whether the number of families receiving cash assistance declined. For several reasons, caseload decline was an appealing standard.

Caseload reduction was easy to measure. Smaller caseloads pleased voters who thought too much was being spent on public assistance. In a robust economy, it was easier for many parents of needy children to find a job and hold onto it than in previous times.

At the same time, lower caseloads do not translate into less poverty in the society. If the jobs taken by former welfare recipients are low wage jobs that fail to pay a living wage and offer little opportunity for advancement, it is unlikely the family will be better off.

Decline in poverty?

As the debate over TANF's future takes shape, advocates for the poor are pressing that states be asked to show that their use of TANF is leading to a decline in poverty among children in Wisconsin. Child poverty, they contend, is a better benchmark for determining the program's success or failure than caseloads.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development is resisting this suggestion. The department's managers suggest that poverty is a complex social phenomenon with many causes. They contend it is unreasonable to hold TANF accountable for changing poverty levels.

This argument has merit. Poverty defies simple explanation. It is difficult for any one program to reduce its presence in a state or community. No program will eliminate it completely.

Still, there is an irony in the department's position about the link between poverty and TANF in 2002. For one of the constant criticisms of the old AFDC program was precisely its failure to move people out of poverty. Welfare as we knew it was regularly described as a trap or narcotic that ensnared families. Arguments that AFDC was not intended to end poverty but rather to make sure needy children were fed, clothed, and housed and that other factors influenced the inability of their parents to find work were often dismissed.

Well-being of children

As the debate moves forward, it may be more fruitful to ask that TANF not be measured by a reduction in poverty, but rather by the well-being of children in working poor families. If we can see that there is less hunger in TANF families, less child neglect, and that children in TANF families lose fewer school days to illness, that will strengthen the case that TANF is working and actually helping needy families deal with temporary setbacks.

On the other hand, if we are going to label TANF a success solely on the basis that fewer families are getting help, we have set the bar for success lower than we did for AFDC. And the slogan of TANF being a "hand up not a hand out" will ring hollow.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.