to the states. there will continue to be a are bust discussion on the role of the federal government as it relates to poverty. one thing we can certainly agree upon, however, is that poverty is bad for children and in some cases is a risk factor for child neglect or maltreatment. it is that correlation between poverty and the potential for child neglect that i intend to focus on today. according to data assembled by the center for law and social policy, poverty is the single best predictor of child maltreatment. children living in families with incomes below $15,000 were 22 times more likely to be abused or neglected than those living in families with incomes of $30,000 or more. now, i want to be clear, poverty does not cause neglect. and being poor does not mean that one is a neglectful parent, but poverty does add stress to already overstressed families and creates conditions that

often are detrimental for children. parents living in deep and persistent poverty are often tired, frustrated and frightened, leading to short tempers, sometimes directed towards their children. many parents in poverty suffer from substance abuse or mental illness and are unwilling or unable to get support for these problems. and subpar housing exposes children to real health risks. unfortunately, the programs under the jurisdiction of our committee designed to address poverty do not work well together even though they are essentially serving the same families. the most salient example just as a temporary systems for needy families or tanf. tanf is a block grant to states for use in ending dependence on government benefits and, more broadly, to promote child well-being. over time the focus of tanf has shifted in working with job-ready adults and preparing them for work to a funding stream largely dedicated to purposes unconnected to job

readiness. based on the spending and the composition of the caseload, one can argue that tanf as a robust welfare-to-work program has all but diminish and in large part can replaced about i the emergence of tanf as a child welfare program. it expired in fiscal year 2010. during the year leading up to the expiration of tanf and each subsequent year, the obama administration has failed to propose a comprehensive reauthorization of these programs. if this committee decides to reauthorize tanf next year, members will need to decide whether or not to recalibrate the program back to a welfare-to-work program. instead if members acknowledge and accept the tanf spending, many of the cash assistance is directed to low income children, then we need to address the fact that this tanf spending is largely unaccounted for and the tanf agencies do not coordinate their spending and services with child welfare agencies.

i hope that the next few years will usher inp much needed reforms to the child welfare system. and as i believe we will learn today the tanf block grant will have to be a part of that conversation. mr. chairman, i really appreciate you holding this hearing, i look forward to hearing from our witnesses and it's an important hearing as far as i'm concerned. >> thank you, senator, very much. now please to welcome our witnesses. today we'll hear from three. dr. ron haskins, co-director of the center on children and families at the brookings institution. dr. laura lein, the dean of school social work at the university of michigan. and kay brown, director of income security at the united states government accountability office. thank you all very much for taking the time to testify to

senator hatch having very important and we look forward to your testimony. we encourage you to be candid, forthcoming and direct in your five, six statements statements but your prepared remarks will automatically be included in the record. why don't you begin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. members of the committee, thank you very much for inviting me. it's a great privilege to testify before this committee. i want to talk about four issues in five minutes. that makes me an issue a minute man. >> you got it. we're going to time you, too. >> what? >> i'm just teasing you. i said we're going to time you and hold you to that, too. >> okay. >> go ahead. you can say whatever you want to say. >> i get this 30 seconds back. poverty trends i'll talk about, spending on programs and major causing of poverty. issue one, the trends in poverty. i included a figure in my testimony that to me has two big surprises. one is we made virtually no progress against poverty since 1975 despite the fact that we're spending a ton more money. and the poverty rate among the

elderly which in most societies is the highest likely to be poor is lower than children in our society. those are two exceptionally important facts. we need to buckle down and figure out what to do about poverty and we should especially concentrate on children. issue two spending. between the states and the federal government, we spend about a trillion dollars on means tested programs. and this number has increased almost every year since 1965. so the idea that we're not spending enough money is probably incorrect. we could be spending it poorly, it might not be focussed on the poor, some of the programs might be unsuccessful, but we're spending a lot of money. about $13,000 per poor person. while a lot of that son health care, critics always mention that, about 45% of it. but congress decided that's where they want to spend the money. so unless you want to change that, 45% is on the poor. the nation has made a great commitment to helping the poor and it increases every year. third issue, the causes. i think four are especially important.

the first is work rates. we're in a long-term decline in work among male in the united states. the work rate among young males, especially young black males -- and i'm referring here to before the recession. i don't want to confuse this with the recession. these are trends before the recession. we have a real problem with male employment in the united states for reasons i don't think are very clear. females have worked more. everybody's aware that married women have joined the labor force since world war ii in increased numbers. it's gone down a bit now. but never married mothers. the poorest group of mothers have had a spectacular increase in employment and even today after two recessions the likelihood that they have a job is greater, about 20%, than it was before welfare reform. so that group is working a lot. still, we need to boost work rates. second are wages. these are astounding at the bottom of the distribution. our wages at the 10% and below in the united states on average are where they were 30 years

ago. it's hard to make progress against poverty because we're always going to have 10% of the people below the 10 percent i'll. as long as wages don't change, no matter what we do about the minimum wage, it's a real problem to help people get out of poverty. if they work full time at the minimum wage they still won't be out of poverty. it's the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. we've had a huge increase in female-headed families, the poverty rates are four or five times the rate for a married couple families and the most disadvantaged are never married, about 70% of black children and 42% of all american children are born outside of marriage. so their probability of being in poverty is very high. family composition is a huge issue. finally education is a very big issue. i would say that our educational

system both at the preschool level k through 12 and post secondary needs a lot of work. i wouldn't say necessarily it's a failure. and the most promises is preschool. now let me talk about a few strategies to fight poverty. i want to preface my remark by saying i think personal responsibility is an absolute key here. you have a substantial component of personal choices. and if people don't make better choices no matter what you do in this hearing room or do in the congress, we're still going to have a big problem with poverty. we have to do something about people's decisions to drop out of school, about decisions to work and about decisions to get married before people -- before they have children. so the first strategy that's worked forever and doesn't make -- it's not hard to understand is give them money. that's what we did with the elderly. we did it especially in the '70s and we have a low elderly poverty rate primarily as a result of social security which is something that congress did. that strategy will not work for young able-bodied americans because americans don't think

that able-bodied people should get welfare. so the second strategy is to do everything possible to encourage and even force people to work and then subsidize their income. i would point out to the committee that this is a highly bipartisan solution. very tough work requirements, very generous work supports. tax credit, medicaid, child care, other programs. we passed at least 40 pieces of legislation over the period starting roughly in the early 1980s to make our system of means tested benefits more friendly to working families. in the old days if you went to work you lost everything and that's no longer the case. the two other strategies that i -- so we need to emphasize work and we need to maintain the work support system, the child tax credit and so forth. two other things that i mention in passing is education. we should focus on preschool. very strong data that a high quality preschool can make a difference. it's not very controversial for the federal congress to be involved in preschool because it

has been for so long. i think our child care that we spend a lot of federal dollars on is the heart of the problem because it's of average quality or worse and that's where we can really make some progress by increasing the average quality of child care. we have lot of strategies. we can reduce teen pregnancy. we have every year since '91 except for two years. even in the 20-somethings we have a number of programs including more coverage, comprehensive family planning services and mass advertising campaigns and then plus the teen pregnancy programs i mentioned. if we spent more money on those programs we would reduce nonmarital birth rates and that would be a good start toward addressing poverty. >> thank you, doctor. that was very good. dr. lein, you're next. >> thank you, i want to thank chairman baucus and ranking member hatch and members of the committee for inviting me here and allowing me to join ron

haskins and kay brown on this panel. i'm a social anthropologist and i work on family in poverty and the institutions that serve them. today, i don't want this to be a contest, ron, i'm going to try to high light six themes about families and illustrate them with examples representative of the data i've worked with. theme number one, before welfare eligible and both welfare eligible and welfare using populations are varied. researchers in washington state found five sub groups ranging from quick levers who left tanf within a year and did not return to stayers who continued on tanf with barely a break. and these groups have fairly different needs. second, both welfare support and the income from low wage labor leave families struggling. families cannot sustain themselves on welfare alone or on low wage work alone. and those relying on these low incomes can experience what i call a cascade effect. when a relatively small problem triggers life changing events. one texas woman i interviewed

had moved off welfare into work and out of public housing into her own apartment. she still depended on subsidized child care for her two children, but when her 2-year-old bit another child at day care, he was asked to leave care and her child care subsidy lapsed when she could not find new child care within the ten days allowed, she couldn't work regularly, she lost her job and her eligibility for renewed child care subsidy. she couldn't pay her rent and was evicted. eight weeks from the biting episode, she was jobless, homeless and without child care to allow her to hunt for a job or to work. third theme. tanf rates have remained stable in a time of recession, but disconnected households with neither earned income nor welfare income have increased. 13% and 20% of single parent poverty households are disconnected at any one time.

one chicago woman in the study had worked all of her life and never been on welfare. as the recession deepened, her hours were reduced, then she was injured on the job. her employer contested her application for unemployment and she was not yet eligible to apply for tanf. her car was repossessed, making doctors visits for her injury and her job search almost impossible. she cut back on her own eating to purchase food and then prepare meals to sell for others. it was four months before she received unemployment benefits. theme number four. more families are living in extreme poverty, often leaving them debilitated by untreated medical conditions and extensive debt. schaeffer and eden estimate that as of the beginning of 2011, about 1.46 million united states households with about 2.8 million children were surviving on $2 in cash or less in income per day per person in a given

month. theme number five. the jobs available for low skilled or low educated workers leave the working poor particularly vulnerable. chicago researchers lambert and henley studied low wage work in retail and hospitality. successful applicants provide lots of availability. i can work any time between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. i might be assigned, say, around 25 hours per week with the timing and number of hours varying each week. however, my employer expects that i can be available any hours between 8:00 and 8:00. needing more money, i take on a second job. however, when that job conflicts with ours assigned by my first job, i am punished with reduced hour in my first job. they found what they call the full-time no-hours week. unemployment and underemployment also affect the men who father children in low income single

parent families leaving both them and the families impoverished. six, there are a number of policies that i thinking can work for families and in some ways this echoes what we've just heard. while paid work is the core of family stability, it is enabled by work supportive services including a robust eitc, tanf, particularly when used as a bridging program for family spacing time limited periods of need. access to child care and health care. a gradual diminution of welfare benefits as recipients enter work so they receive supports necessary for their stabilization. an emphasis on best employment practice so that parents can work and parent simultaneously. we need to look at alternate programs for parents physically or mentally unable to work. their access to disability services and their access to support such as supported work

placements and longer term income and rehabilitative assistance. and we need programs that encourage and reward fathers fiscal and logistical involvement. child support programs that encourage that involvement and training and placement programs for men. and overall, we need opportunities for program experimentation and evaluation to support low income families and children. thanks very much. >> thank you, doctor, very much. ms. brown, you're next. >> chairman baucus -- >> do you want to bring your microphone, please, a little closer. >> how's that? >> that's great. thank you. >> chairman baucus, ranking member hatch and members of the committee, i'm pleased to be here today to discuss our work on the role of tanf in helping poor families. over the past 15 years, federal and state spending for tanf has totaled about $406 billion

representing a significant investment in efforts to promote self-sufficiency and combat poverty. my remarks based on previously published gao reports will focus on the performance of tanf as a safety net, as a welfare-to-work program and a funding source for other services. first on tanf as a safety net. the story of tanf's early years is well known. the strong economy combined with the new focus on work contributed to a decline in the rolls of more than 50%. many former welfare recipients increased their income through employment. however, much of the caseload decline resulted from fewer eligible families participating in the program. perhaps in response to tanf's new rules such as work

requirements and time limits. we've been particularly concerned about a small but possibly growing portion of families that were eligible for tanf but did not work, had very low incomes and did not receive cash benefits. more recently, we had the first test of tanf during severe economic times. the relatively modest national caseload income of 13% along with caseload decreases in some states raises questions about the responsiveness of tanf. for example, we recently estimated that among poor and near poor families that lost job in the recession and used up their unemployment benefits, 40% received food stamp benefits yet less than 10% received tanf assistance. next on tanf and moving parents into work, tanf's work participation requirement is the primary federal tool to encourage states to prepare parents for work. states are expected to ensure

that 50% of work-eligible families receiving cash assistance are engaged in certain federally defined work activities. however, states have generally engaged fewer families than envisioned, closer to one-third, with little change over time. despite this, states can still meet their work participation requirement by relying on several policy and funding options. as a result of these options, states may not have the incentive to engage more families or to work with families with complex needs. lastly, on the use of tanf for a broad array of services. tanf plays a significant role in state funding of other programs and services for low income families as allowed under program rules. in fact, in fiscal year 2011, federal and state tanf expenditures for purposes other than cash assistance amounted to 71% of the total. these purposes included child

care, child welfare, earned income, tax credits and teen pregnancy counseling. however, we don't know enough about how these funds are used and who benefits. and who benefits. this information gap hindered decisionmakers in considering the success of tanf and what trade-offs might be involved in any changes to tanf when it is reauthorized. in conclusion, the federal/state tanf partnership makes significant resources available for families with children. with these resources, tanf has provided financial support to these families, helped many parents step into jobs and provided states with flexible funding to support programs consistent with tanf goals. at the same time there are questions about the strength and breadth of tanf as a safety net. many eligible families, some of whom have very low incomes, are not participating.

the focus on work participation rates has helped some families gain employment, but it may not provide states with incentives to engage the most difficult to serve. and finally, while states have used tanf to support a variety of programs, we do not know enough about this spending and whether this flexibility is resulting in the most efficient and effective use of funds at this time of scarce government resources and great need among the nation's low income families. this concludes my prepared statement. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, all of you, very much. my staff gave me a startling statistic. i'd like you to respond and indicate what you believe the solutions are. we've already touched on it a little bit. the statistic is the united states ranks 34th out of 35

economically advanced countries on child poverty. just ahead of romania. 34th out of 35. just ahead of romania. on child poverty. i do not know the source of that. i take it that it's accurate. i think it's the census bureau. that's not good. and dr. hoskins, you've listed several causes, work rates are so low, wages keep it up, family composition deteriorating, weak education system, and you also mentioned in your presentation that addressing trends and although the elderly are doing a little better that children are doing a lot worse. and this number seems to reflect that. could be focus on the kids, how are we going to get more kids out of poverty? >> the first thing i would say

is that we're going to need resources. we have a lot now. but we're going to lose some of them inevitably over the next two, three, four, five years when congress at last decides to deal with the deficit. so i think in the long run, the number one thing we have to do is at least slow the rate of growth in programs for the elderly and increase the rate of growth in programs for children and especially programs that are focused on children's development like high quality preschool programs. we have abundant data from good scientific experiments that high quality preschool can increase kids' development and make them ready for school, and we have a number of good studies that show long-term impacts on lower teen pregnancy rates, higher college admissions and so forth. that would be a place where we can invest and even if we couldn't get money from the programs for the elderly by reducing the rate of growth, not cutting them, reducing the rate of growth, we should figure out a way to do it with the poverty resources.

of course, the committee structure in congress is not particularly helpful in doing that. but helpful to invest money there. secondly, i think that the work strategy as other witnesses said, you cannot get off poverty in the united states if you're only on welfare and you cannot get off poverty in the unite states, especially if you have two or more children, if you work in a minimum wage job. so we can't command that the employers pay more than a minimum wage job. we can do that but we'd lose some jobs if we did it. the better strategy is one that we've adopted which is to subsidize earnings to low income families. our earned income tax credit, child tax credit, medicaid program even the food stamp program all made important changes since roughly the mid-1980s up to the last that we know of during the recession we made a number of changes in the eitc and the child tax credit that made it more generous to working families. so that is the strategy that works. that's the only thing i think that we've done that is -- will produce a fairly short-term

impact on poverty. so we've got to increase work by single mothers and hopefully by males as well and subsidize the earnings. we need to maintain that system. we've got something that works. we need to expand it and stick with it. >> if we're 34 out of 35, what can we learn from other countries? what do other countries do that might be helpful here? >> well, first, i've never seen that number before. there are lots of big debates -- >> let's assume it's close. what can we learn from other countries? >> it depends on what you count. if you use our official poverty measure, it's crazy. if you use the official poverty measure, all these programs that i just talked about aren't included in the official poverty measure. >> that's unicef. >> makes it even more doubtful. >> whatever it is, you're not condoning it. >> no, i'm not condoning it. but i just -- i don't -- we ought to think about the problems that we have in the united states. there are some things we can learn from foreign countries. >> i was going to ask, any come

to mind? >> we've done a number of things that they've done and they've done things that we've done. for example, people tend to think of europe as a bunch of liberal socialists. they have very strong work requirements not only in their there poverty programs but also in their disability programs and even trying to figure out ways to encourage the elderly to work. because they're following the principle that in the 21st century governments are not going to make it unless they have more people working, paying taxes, and fewer people getting benefits. so i think they've learned something from us. we've learned from them the importance of a social safety net. and i think we do have a fairly reasonable safety net. i would point out to the committee in 2009 even though tanf was abysmal, i admit that, we should talk about that and the committee should address it during reauthorization. but nonetheless, our other programs expanded. poverty did not increase in 2009 despite the huge increase in unemployment because of government program that kept people out of poverty. so that's a great achievement of our system.

and i think part of that we learned from europe, about the importance of having a safety net. >> i think it's just -- astounding, in fact, more than a tragedy that so many kids live in poverty. it's just -- it's an outrage. and i just think our country deserves a big black eye for not addressing it more efficiently. my time's expired. my time has expired. senator hatch has been very generous in suggesting that you may be able to respond. >> thank you. that i think we can learn both about how to coordinate early childhood education from the approaches other countries have taken so that it's more universally available. and secondly to recognize that the costs of health care and the damage done to families by injury and lack of health treatment are considerable, and that bolstering health care particularly for low income adults can make a change in our poverty levels. >> can you give an example of that coordination?

>> the kinds of coordination, so in our country we have basically three different systems that provide child care to impoverished adults -- to impoverished parents for their children. we have the head start program, we have subsidized child care and in most locales we have prekindergarten. each of those is for different subgroups of children, and none of them are reaching all eligible children. >> okay. >> unlike a system that has it more tied in to public schools as an accepted part of the schooling system, or in a series as they have in france, of crutches or places that you can take children. and again, it's fairly universally available. >> thank youment >> dr. haskins, the most recent data from the department of health and human services reveals that nearly 55% of work eligible adults receiving assistance are engaged in zero hours of activity.

i'd like you to comment on that statistic, and also do you believe it was the intention of members of congress and president clinton that in over a decade and a half since welfare reform, more than half the welfare caseload would be doing absolutely nothing? >> well, of course, it was not. i worked on the welfare legislation when i was with the house ways and means committee, and there's no question that it was bipartisan agreement that more people should work and that the cash welfare system should not just dispense cash, it ought to encourage employment and that it does now. however, i think part of the problem is it's astounding to me that after 1996 the states ran programs that were very successful under almost every count. there was a problem at the bottom. we can you talk about that if you want to. i don't want to say that welfare reform was a magic bullet. but it did a lot that people thought was impossible. we had a 40% increase in a four-year period in the percentage of never-married mothers, the most disadvantaged group, that actually had job.