Dave Camp: “I would just say--as other speakers have mentioned--the 1996 welfare reform law has been tremendously successful. It has…”

“I would just say--as other speakers have mentioned--the 1996 welfare reform law has been tremendously successful. It has lowered welfare roles, it has lifted people out of poverty, it has reduced poverty for single mothers, and reduced poverty for children. And before that, before we had the 1996 welfare reform law, whether times were good or bad, welfare rolls only increased. Clearly, the welfare reform law has been successful. Frankly, we need to protect the law from this administration, because what this administration wants to do is undermine the work requirement in welfare. And what are we talking about here? The work requirement is really that only half of the welfare caseload has to be in work. That means for the other half, States have ultimate flexibility to determine how to move those people into job readiness and to work. For the half of the people that need to be in some form of work requirement there are 12 definitions of what is work in the law. Let me just list those off: Subsidized private employment, subsidized government employment, job search, community service. You can be in community service and that qualifies for work. Work experience, on-the-job training. If you're getting training related to your job, that counts as work. Vocational education. So you can be training in a vocational discipline and still have that qualify for work. Caring for the child of a TANF recipient in community service.…”