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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION Sunday P mber 10, 1995_ Al7 Senate Welfare Plan Forces Work, But Ignores Child Care By Vanessa Gallman gressional BudgetOffice. KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE Addingin the extra expense of WASHINGTON — Just before a Senate committee approved a Republican welfare pian this summer, a federal budget agency dropped a bomb: Only six states could afford to provide the day care the senators were considering. The senators’ solution: They dropped the requirement. But the bomb remainsticking as the Senate moves to approve a welfarebill by next week. job training, the budgetoffice estimates that states would need as much as $10 billion more to put people to work. That would be more than halfthetotal estimated cost of the program. Sixty percent of families that now receive cash-welfare benefits are mothers with children under age 6, said Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D. “If we want real reform, then we oweit to these families to do And whatthe Senate does about ourlevel best to find them a way day care, advocates across the po- to care for their children,” Daschlesaid. “Child care is crucial. It’s an in our kids.” There’s a good chance the Senate will put more money for child care in its bill. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, under pressure from GOP moderates, said he is searching for a way to provide more money. And President Clinton has said he expects more child-care money in any bil. he litical spectrum say, probably will determine whetherstates can succeed in putting poor mothers to work, a key elementofefforts to overhaul welfare. Under the current Senate welfare plan, said Nancy Ebb, senior staff attorney at the Children’s Defense Fund, five years from now, 665,000 more poorchildren will need child care, an increase of 163 percent. The new bill also could affect the lives of 750,000 working families who get child-care subsidies. Those subsidies, which have long waiting lists in most states, could be abolished by the states to find moneyfor welfare families. “That would mean the working Poorof today may be the welfare recipients of tomorrow,” said Nancy Ebb, senior staff attorney of the Children’s Defense Fund. The $16.8 billion Senate welfare bill — which puts time limits on benefits and limits the money states would receive to design their own welfare programs — includes $1 billion for child care. The moneyisrolled into the block of moneyeach state would receive and can be used however states want. That amountis at least $2.4 billion short of what states would need to meet requirements to put half of welfare recipients to work by 2000, according to the Con- director of humanservices for the National Conference of State Legislatures. She calls child-care requirements an “unfunded mandate’’ —. a federal cost passed on to the states. “Our view is that child care is an essential for recipients to go to work,” she said. “One of the major reasons people stop work and go on welfare is that they can’t afford child care.” The view that adequate child care is crucial to welfare reform has attracted bipartisan support — from liberal Sen. Edward Ken- nedy, D-Mass., to conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Child care substantially increases thelikelihood that mothers will work, according to recent studies of the Government Accounting Office. When child care is available, the numberof poor mothers who work rises from 29 to 44 out of 100, the GAOreports. When those mothers hay no family support and no subsidi just 6 out of 100 will work, the reports showed. The GAO also foundthatstates, Still, welfare recipients — faced with a two-year cutoff of benefits if they don’t work and a five-year lifetime limit — probably would bethe priority. The bill when faced with higher demands from welfare recipients, says states would have tie option place of exempting women who have a working people in lower priority. “Pitting families seeking to get off welfare against those seeking to stay off welfare is cruel and counterproductive,” Kennedy Sai Evenif all the day-care subsidies available to the working poor wentinstead to welfare families, states would still not have enough money for the welfare recipients scheduled to enter the work force, according to the budget office. child under age 1 But with states not obligated to provide child care, some advocates worry, any well-intentioned welfare reform could backfire. “These families could face a terrible choice,” Ebb said. “Either they put children in child care that is unsafe or inadequate or they leave them alone or they make makeshift arrangements that fall through. And then they lose jobs.”” signs. Such demands are running u against the GOP goalof cutting Looking for your favorite shows? welfare money to reducethe defi- eit and provide a tax cut. The bill proposes to cut welfare spending by $70 billion over seven years. Thebill has other goals. Social conservatives talk about poor families’ demonstrating more personal responsibility, and other lawmakersinsist states should not be told how io spend their welfare money. But some people worry that There's still hope. states won't even try to meet the work requirements. Under the bill, they would lose 5 percent of their block grantif they do notget enoughpeople working. “We can’t expect states to do morewith less,” said Donna Pravetti, welfare expert at the Urban Institute. “Many states will just Call 1 800 MORE TWO take the penalty.” That's not a choice states would want to make, said SheriSteisel, We'll help you find them. Chicago Hope Monday 9PM ale “I NSP ets ING Another Witness. By Afterglow. 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