A budget-cutting bill in Congress calls for changes in the
nation’s welfare system, mandating individuals on its rolls to
spend 40 hours a week in work-related activities.

The language for the changes is contained in the massive
830-page document dubbed the Deficit Reduction Act, or referred to
inside the beltway as the Budget Reconciliation bill. The proposed
legislation – which tweaks the 1996 Welfare Reform Act – calls for
$50 billion in savings over five years by applying new costs to
Medicaid recipients, cutting federal child-support enforcement and
narrowing the eligibility for food stamps, among other items.

The changes are largely Republican-backed; President Bush has
sought changes in the welfare system since coming into office.

According to Chris Tucker, communications director for U.S. Rep.
John Peterson, R-Pa., the bill would increase welfare reform
spending by nearly $1 billion over the five-year span.

In exchange, Tucker said, the legislation calls for welfare
recipients to engage in work-related activities for 40 hours a week
– up from the current 30-hour a week requirement. Officials said 16
of those hours must be dedicated to either education or job
training.

Officials said the mandates would apply to every adult currently
on the rolls, as well as mothers with children under 6-years-old
who currently only work half that time.

“The congressman believes that American tax dollars spent on
welfare should help support a system that blunts the spread and
scope of poverty, not contributes to it,” Tucker said. “In its
present treatment of welfare reform, this bill accomplishes that
objective.

“If the 1996 Welfare Reform Act has taught us anything, it’s
that strong work requirements can be a successful way to get folks
into long-term paying jobs and off the welfare rolls,” Tucker
added.

Officials said welfare caseloads have dropped more than 60
percent from the all-time high of 5.1 million families in March
1994 to fewer than two million in June 2004. Currently, there are
more than 2 million families nationwide on welfare.

The legislation would also require states to have 70 percent of
their welfare recipients working, up from the current 50 percent
threshold.

On the local level, McKean County Board of Assistance Executive
Director Gene Staiger said the agency will work closely with
recipients to ensure the federal mandates are met.

“They are raising the bar, so we’ll put our heads together and
roll up our sleeves a little higher,” Staiger said.

He explained the actual number of cash recipients is relatively
low across the county, with the third generation welfare recipient
not the norm.

The situation in McKean County is often compounded due to
unemployment and a lack of high-paying jobs.

Officials said the goal of the welfare program is to enable
recipients to become self-sufficient and not just stand by and wait
for government assistance. That is where the education and training
mandates come in, helping to channel an individual to a job they
will stay and thrive in.

For his part, Wade Horn, the assistant secretary for children
and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
told The Washington Post that changes in the welfare legislation
prove that part-time, low-wage work can’t lift a family out of
poverty.

“We’re not big, mean conservatives, trying to punish the poor,”
Horn told the Post. “States have been focusing on part-time work
because that’s what we told them to do. The standard should be what
most Americans think work is: full-time work.”

Opponents of the legislation argue that cuts to food stamps and
Medicaid could add more of a burden to those struggling to get
by.

Congress is slated to take up the legislation when they return
from Thanksgiving break next week.