READ IT & WEEP, GENTLEMEN! Note that "Record Child Support Enforcement" is just below "MOVING FORWARD ON THE PROMISE OF WELFARE REFORM". Excerpt of HHS 1997 ACCOMPLISHMENTS Report ___________________________________________________________ MOVING FORWARD ON THE PROMISE OF WELFARE REFORM Largest Caseload Decline in History. In 1997, HHS announced that the welfare caseload fell by 3.4 million recipients, from 14.1 million in January 1993 to 10.7 million in May 1997, a drop of 24 percent since the Clinton Administration took office. Forty-eight out of fifty states have seen their caseloads decline, with ten states reducing their rolls by 40 percent or more in the last four years. This is the largest welfare caseload decline in history and represents the lowest percentage of the population on welfare since 1970. According to an analysis released in 1997 by the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), the reduction in the welfare rolls can be attributed to the strong economic growth during the Clinton Administration, the waivers granted to states to test innovative strategies to move people from welfare to work, and other factors, such as the Administration's expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. Overhauling the Welfare System Nationwide. On July 1, 1997, the historic welfare law that the President signed last August went in to effect in every state, making work and responsibility the law of the land. HHS has certified welfare plans for each state. In accordance with the welfare law, all plans require and reward work, impose time limits, and demand personal responsibility. The balanced budget that the President signed on August 5, 1997 delivered on the President's pledge to fulfill the promise of welfare reform by investing in moving people from welfare to work and fixing the provisions in the law that had nothing to do with welfare reform, including restoring disability and health benefits to legal immigrants who are currently receiving benefits or become disabled in the future, and continuing Medicaid coverage for currently disabled children receiving SSI. On November 17, 1997, HHS proposed regulations under the new law which are intended to help all welfare recipients who can work g o to work, and to encourage states to work with all families. Record Child Support Enforcement. Due to the President's unprecedented and sustained campaign to make non custodial parents pay the child support they owe, HHS announced in 1997 that it had collected a record $12 billion in child support in 1996, an increase of 50 percent since 1992. In addition, HHS announced that paternity establishment almost doubled to nearly 1 million cases in FY 1996, from 516,000 in 1992. And the number of families actually receiving child support rose to 4 million cases with collections, an increase of 43 percent over 1992. To build on this progress, the new welfare law includes tough child support measures long-supported by the President, including: a national new hire reporting system; streamlined paternity establishment; uniform interstate child support laws; computerized state-wide collections; and tough new penalties. These measures are projected to increase child support collections to more than $24 billion in the next ten years. New Proposal to Improve State Child Support State Incentive Payments. On March 13, 1997, Secretary Shalala submitted to Congress a proposal designed to further improve the performance of state child support enforcement programs by linking federal incentive payments to states to their performance in five key areas: establishment of paternities, establishment of child support orders, collections on current child support owed, collections on previously or past due child support owed, and cost-effectiveness. The five areas are intended to better measure the performance of states in fostering parental support for children and family self-sufficiency. Current law provides for HHS to make incentive payments to states for their child support enforcement systems, but these payments are based only on cost-effectiveness. Under the new welfare reform law, HHS was authorized to prepare an alternative plan. On September 16, 1997, Secretary Shalala joined Reps. Clay Shaw and Sandy Levin in announcing bipartisan legislation drawn from the HHS proposal. The legislation would provide incentive funds to states which deliver real results for children who need child support payments from non-custodial parents. To reinforce the goal of achieving self-sufficiency, states will be rewarded for collection in all child support cases, but with a stronger emphasis on welfare and former welfare cases. The House passed this legislation in 1997, and action on the bill is pending in the Senate.