Lynn C. Woolsey: “here we go again. Instead of making this TANF law better, instead of giving welfare recipients the tools to move from…”

“here we go again. Instead of making this TANF law better, instead of giving welfare recipients the tools to move from welfare to self-sufficiency, we are once again renewing, for the eighth time renewing it, actually, a bill that continues moving families from welfare further into poverty. Instead, we should be making education or training count as work so that that activity for welfare recipients will help them get ready for better educational opportunities and job training so they can have better opportunities for earning a salary that pays a livable wage. They will not get that unless they have education and training. Instead of again extending an outdated welfare bill, we should be providing quality child care, child care that includes more care for infants, child care that extends to parents who work weekends and evenings. That is what we need. That is what these parents need. That is what they need to help them get their jobs and become self-sufficient. Let us face it, if parents do not have a safe, convenient place to leave their children, they cannot go to work. Believe me, I know, because over 30 years ago I was a single mother with three small children, abandoned by their father; and even though I was working full-time, I needed welfare, aid for dependent children at that time, to keep our lives together, to get my children the health care, the child care they needed.”