Since bipartisan welfare
reform passed in 1996, parents seeking cash assistance from the federal
government have had to work, look for work, or attend training or education to
prepare them to work.

This requirement has led to
a leap in employment, higher earnings, and lower poverty for struggling
families. Since welfare reform took effect in the late 1990s, according to
recent research by University of Chicago and AEI economist Bruce D. Meyer and
his colleagues — who are part of a working group spanning 11 government
agencies and dedicated to creating a new accurate set of poverty measures — the
share of American children living in poverty has fallen from 13.3 percent to
3.7 percent.

Welfare reform’s goal to
help struggling parents find jobs and earn an income to lift their families out
of poverty was accomplished by a combination of employment requirements and
generous government supports for working parents.

But now, Democrats, led by
President Biden (who voted for the 1996 reforms) and Senator Michael Bennet of
Colorado, want to end all that. Their welfare plans, specifically the new Child
Tax Credit, would send money to parents regardless of the efforts they make to
work or develop new skills.

Fortunately, one Democrat is
daring to say that both work and support are needed to help struggling
Americans move up.

Last Sunday, Senator Joe
Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, voiced his concerns about the lack of
support for employment in the Child Tax Credit: “There’s no work
requirements whatsoever,” he said. “There’s no education requirements
whatsoever for better skill sets. Don’t you think, if we’re going to help the
children, that the [parents] should make some effort?”

Senator Manchin is exactly
right.

Work requirements for
parents receiving public aid lead to better outcomes for their children. These
improvements go beyond family income. Since welfare reform, the poorest
children have had higher graduation rates, better access to health care, and
better economic mobility when they grow up. These gains have resulted from our
dual emphasis on work and support.

Now, leading Democrats
contend that struggling families just need more money. But the success of
welfare reform — which I saw firsthand as a social services administrator for
both New York State and New York City — showed that what struggling Americans
needed most were jobs, affordable child care, support from non-resident
parents, and help with underlying issues, like substance abuse and mental
health.

President Biden’s plan to
give “working families a fighting chance again” doesn’t include any of that.
And making the $300 per month per child credits fully available to all,
regardless of income, does not particularly help “working families” because
non-working parents with no income still receive the same cash benefits.

Under the Biden plan, the
IRS will send out billions in cash aid, yet never see the people it serves, or
help them find work, or ensure that their children are in school or appropriate
day care. If these monthly federal checks keep flowing, the IRS will complete
its transformation into America’s principal welfare agency, a role our federal
tax collectors were never meant to play.

Three hundred dollars per
child might seem like a small amount, but it’s added cash on top of the
non-cash government aid already going to non-working families. All these
benefits accumulate to make employment less attractive to parents receiving
aid.

If we add up the non-cash
federal aid currently available to able-bodied parents who could be working but
aren’t, the total value is not insignificant. A family consisting of a single
non-working parent and two kids, can receive up to $535 a month in SNAP benefits
on their EBT card to pay for food, including unhealthy but popular products
like sugary soda and salty potato chips. These products contribute to child
obesity, which public health experts say is the most serious health problem for
poor children, far outpacing COVID-19.

But that isn’t all. A
non-working family of one adult and two kids in West Virginia, Senator
Manchin’s home state, have cost the state and federal governments about $670 on
average per month for full health insurance coverage from Medicaid. Such a
family could also receive housing aid, which averages $810 per month in federal
aid alone, on top of any state government aid.

So without taking into
account all the other kinds of aid available to a non-working family of three,
we have $535 in food aid, $670 in health coverage, and $810 in federal housing
assistance. This is an expenditure of almost $2,015 a month (or $24,180 a year)
for a non-working family. The new Child Tax Credit adds another $600 per month
($7,200 a year) in cash to the family’s resources without any work requirement.

So, with all that aid, why
work? No wonder Senator Manchin is so worried, as the availability of public
benefits for non-working adults in his home state of West Virginia has led to a
labor force participation rate that’s the lowest in the country.

The single most important
aspect of America’s safety net program were work requirements for cash welfare
which encouraged struggling parents to find jobs.
But today, Democrats are undermining that essential program by offering
comparable cash benefits, without any requirement for parents to provide for
their families.

I hope Senator Manchin keeps
speaking out and objecting to a radical policy change that undermines years of
success and this most important lesson: Struggling families need both work
and support to rise out of poverty.

Robert Doar is the president of the American Enterprise Institute where he is also the Morgridge Scholar.

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