dr. haskins, it's nice to be with you again. i served on the ways and means committee and went up against dr. haskins 16 years ago, and lost most of my arguments and provisions, but joined the majority in supporting the tanf legislation 16 years ago and i think it was the right decision to change the program and make it focused on getting people out of poverty and getting them employed. but i do think we have to acknowledge some concerns. senator bingaman already mentioned some of those issues. in a recession we would expect states to be able to respond by putting more cash out there, when the job market is more difficult, but we know that during this recession, the states didn't have that option in many cases. they just didn't have the fiscal capacity to do what we would have liked them to do, it would have had to cut other programs and they weren't prepared to do that. so i do think it does raise an issue as to how tanf works during recessions. secondly, we can all point with pride the number of people who are off cash assista

dr. haskins. when i was privileged to be governor of delaware and involved in the national governors association, this issue, he was one of the top advisors for us in the house and frankly as governors as well. i appreciate very much the great work that you've done, continue to do. i welcome our other two witnesses as well. i still have the chance to go into schools all over my state, i'm sure my colleagues visit schools throughout their states. i like to do assemblies in high schools and sometimes when i do, in middle schools as well, and i'll mention this to them, that if a young woman age 16 becomes pregnant, drops out of school, does not marry the father of her child, there's an 80% likelihood that they will live in poverty. if that same 16-year-old girl does not become pregnant, graduates high school, waits until at least 20 to have a child and ends up marrying the father of her child, there's an 8% likelihood they will live in poverty. those were numbers from probably a decade or so ago but

dr. haskins.e are going to time you, too. >> i will talk about spending in the program and what we should do about poverty. i included a figure in my testimony. it has done too big surprises in it. one is that we have made no progress in poverty since 1975 despite the fact that we are spending a ton of money. the rate of poverty for seniors is lower than for children in our society. those are facts that we need to focus on and we need to especially concentrate on children. eshoo to -- issue two, we spend money on means tested programs. the idea that we are not spending enough money is probably incorrect. some of the programs might not be successful but we are spending $13,000 per port person. congress decided that is where they want to spend the money. 45% is on the poor. the nation has made a great commitment on helping the poor and it increases each year. four issues are especially important. the first is work rates. the work rate among young black males -- this is before the recession. we have

dr. ron haskins from the brooking institution, and dr. laura lane, the dean of school of social work at the university of michigan, and kay brown, d k director of income security at the united states government and accountability office. thank all of you very, very much for taking the time to testify about something that is very, very important, and we look forward to your testimony and ask for you to be candid and direct in your five or six statements of the opening statements that you have prepared remarks will be automatically included in the record. why don't you begin dr. haskins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me and it is a privilege to testify before the committee. i want to talk about four issues in five minutes, and that makes me an issue a minute man. >> okay. we are going the time you, too. >> you are going to what? >> i am teasing you. i said we are going to time you and hold you to it, too. no, now, don't you worry. >> i will get the 30 seconds of exchange bac

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