Access to Education and Training for Public Benefits Recipients

August 1, 2008

Author: Don Friedman

Ever since welfare reform in 1996, welfare recipients have faced multiple obstacles to participating in education and training.  Many of us find this a strange irony since education and training clearly and consistently provide the most successful path off of welfare and out of poverty.  But the rules requiring recipients to engage virtually full-time in work-related activities have often made education a practical impossibility.

In 2006, Congress revised the federal TANF laws (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) in ways that threaten to make it even more difficult to pursue education and training.  Most notably, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services to write regulations providing clearer definitions of the various activities that could count as work.  HHS finalized these regulations in very restrictive ways that deprive states and counties of much of the flexibility they previously had in assigning work activities.  But the final regulations also afforded some glimmers of hope.

These final regs stated that, if a person is engaging in an approved educational activity, at least one hour of unsupervised homework time can count as work for every hour of classroom time.  In addition, HHS specifically declared that hours spent in a four-year college program can count towards meeting a person’s work requirements.

Here in New York, a coalition that calls itself the Education Task Force was inspired by these positive changes to mobilize an effort to more broadly expand access to education and training in this state.  ETF includes, among others, Empire Justice, the Legal Aid Society (NYC), the Hunger Action Network of NYS, the Welfare Rights Initiative, the Urban Justice Center, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, and members of the CUNY Law School faculty.

We put together a three point bill that would (1) adopt the federal rule for counting homework hours, (2) add four-year college to the list of countable activities, and (3) state that, if a recipient asks to be assigned to education or training activities, such a request must not be unreasonably denied.

Although we did not ultimately succeed, we made remarkable progress in this initial effort.  A bill closely modeled on our proposal was introduced through the Assembly Social Services Committee, chaired by Keith Wright, and then through the same committee in the Senate, chaired by Carl Kruger.  Both bills were eventually reported out of committee, moving closer to a vote.

But, as has too often been the case when we advocate for a welfare system that will really enable people to emerge from poverty, there was substantial opposition.  We faced serious concerns in the Senate about access to college for people on welfare that would in effect give them greater access to college than many working and middle class constituents.  Putting aside the fact that the number of recipients who want to and will be able to attend college is quite small (for starters, close to 70% of adult welfare recipients in NYS lack a high school diploma), we are reminded of our continuing need to affirm  that we fully support improving everyone’s access to higher education, and not allowing this debate to pit poor people against others who are also struggling.

Somewhat more surprising, and disappointing, was the opposition voiced by the Paterson administration, as expressed in a memorandum of opposition from the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.  They began by noting their support of the principle of expanding welfare recipient participation in education and training activities – and they have taken some modest steps in that direction,  but they then raised an oft-heard concern about leaving maximum discretion with the counties and not imposing this type of mandate.  We were not particularly successful with our response that our proposed rule that education and training requests not be unreasonably denied in fact requires extensive county evaluation and decision-making.

Unfortunately, the ultimate outcome, when the session came to an end, was a stalemate.  Our bill had strong support in the Assembly, but opposition from OTDA and the Senate.  A measure of our impact was the fact that in neither house was OTDA able to have its very limited alternative bill even introduced.

The ETF has begun meeting to regroup – to figure out what went well and where we can improve, who else needs to be brought into our coalition, and what other strategies we might employ.  If you’re interested, please feel free to get in touch with dfriedman@empirejustice.org.