Hello, Minimum Wage

Single mothers receiving welfare who are trying to better their lives by earning a two- or four-year college degree recently got a lifeline in their continuing struggle to stay afloat. But it appears their time is running out.

Congress extended the current welfare program on March 14 for three months, staving off the latest attempt by House Republicans to make it more difficult for low-income single mothers to take college and community college classes. The goal of Republican welfare reformers is "work first," meaning that jobs -- no matter how dead-end and how low-wage -- are preferable to education and training. (Welfare has never paid college tuition; at issue is whether recipients can enroll in classes or must enroll in work programs, and for how many hours a week.)

Shutting down educational and vocational opportunities for struggling single mothers seems particularly perverse; welfare advocates call it a surefire way to drive low-income families permanently into the ranks of the working poor.

"We should be promoting post-secondary education for low-income women," says Jennifer Tucker, vice president of the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. "It's poverty prevention."

In January, House Republicans introduced legislation that would reduce the amount of time a welfare recipient could attend a full-time vocational program from a year to four months every two years. (Welfare benefits expire after five years.) At the same time, the bill would ratchet up the time spent in work or work-related activities from 30 to 40 hours weekly, no longer exempting parents with children under six years old.

Work requirements have been in place since the sweeping welfare reforms of 1996, but 49 states have modified them so that vocational training and, less commonly, college could fulfill part or all of the 30 work-hours currently required, according to the Center for Women Policy Studies.

These modifications were possible under the 1996 law, but, in contrast, the recent Republican proposal allows no such flexibility. Of the 40 hours mandated, 24 would go toward work only, which means that all but one state conceivably would have to scale back its postsecondary initiatives.

In fairness, the other 16 hours of the mandated 40 hours could include vocational training. However, it's hard to imagine that a single mother living in poverty would be able to pay for after-hours babysitting (or even find it). Scheduling classes around the 24-hour minimum work schedule just adds one more factor to the already-demanding equation of balancing child care, daycare and studies -- and that's not counting any personal hardships that led to welfare dependency, such as illness or domestic abuse. Research shows that single parents already take much longer than average to complete a two- or four-year program.

"In a real-world context, you can't go to your prospective employer and say, 'I need 24 hours of work, and they can't conflict with my class schedule‚'" explains Julie Strawn, senior policy analyst for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). States will only be able to create so many work-study programs allowing a flexible work schedule, she says.

The House legislation would mean the end of extended full-time vocational training for single mothers while on welfare, and a much-reduced chance of completing part-time studies or job training. The bill that would implement these changes, HR 240, has a good chance of becoming law, Strawn and other experts believe, because earlier versions of it have passed in the House in 2002 and 2003. Also, the bill is in sync with the Bush administration's welfare policies.

The Senate has not made comparable progress on its own legislation, leaving Congress little option but to extend the 1996 welfare provisions under Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), which first expired in 2002 and has been living off extensions.