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21–281 2016

FIRST HEARING IN SERIES ON 

MOVING AMERICA’S FAMILIES FORWARD 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 11, 2015 

Serial No. 114–HR01 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 


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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin, Chairman 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

DIANE BLACK, Tennessee 

TOM REED, New York 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

JIM RENACCI, Ohio 

PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

KRISTI NOEM, South Dakota 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

JASON SMITH, Missouri 

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan 

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

DANNY DAVIS, Illinois 

LINDA SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

JOYCE MYER, Staff Director 

JANICE MAYS, Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana, Chairman 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

TOM REED, New York 

KRISTI NOEM, South Dakota 

PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

JASON SMITH, Missouri 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

DANNY DAVIS, Illinois 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of February 11, 2015 announcing the hearing ...................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Frances Deviney, Ph.D., Associate Director, Center for Public Policy Priorities ........................................................................................................................ 46 

Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution ...... 7 

W. Bradford Wilcox, Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute ............... 35 

Scott Winship, Walter B. Wriston Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy 

Research ................................................................................................................ 16 

SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD 

National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) ......................................................... 76 


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FIRST HEARING IN SERIES ON 

MOVING AMERICA’S FAMILIES FORWARD 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in Room 

B–318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Charles Boustany 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:] 


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ADVISORY 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 225–3625 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015 

No. HR–01 

Chairman Boustany Announces First Hearing in 

Series on Moving America’s Families Forward 

Congressman Charles Boustany (R–LA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on 

Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the 

Subcommittee will hold a hearing series on moving America’s families forward. The 

first hearing will focus on Challenges Facing Low-Income Individuals and Families 

in Today’s Economy. Subsequent hearings are expected to focus on engaging lowincome adults in work and training, coordinating benefit programs, reviewing lessons learned in other countries, and using evidence to ensure programs help people 

in need experience real progress. The hearing will take place immediately following the Human Resources Organizational Meeting at 2:00 p.m. on 

Wednesday, February 11, 2015, in room B–318 of the Rayburn House Office 

Building. 

In view of the limited time available to hear from witnesses, oral testimony at 

this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will include experts on 

how the current labor market affects low-income individuals and families, the nature and dynamics of poverty in recent years, and the shifting structure of households and families in the United States. However, any individual or organization not 

scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration 

by the Committee for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. 

BACKGROUND: 

While employment growth has resumed, our Nation’s economy isn’t working as 

well as it should to help individuals and families escape poverty and move up the 

economic ladder. Too many Americans are struggling to find work, and incomes 

aren’t growing as they should. Poverty rates also remain high, even though the recession ended 51⁄2 years ago. In each year since 2009, one out of five children lived 

in families with income below the poverty line. Changes in family dynamics and 

household structure have also had significant impacts on the economic situation of 

families across the country. Recent surveys have shown that many have even lost 

confidence in their ability to achieve the American Dream. 

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Boustany stated, ‘‘Even though this is 

technically the sixth year of the current ‘recovery,’ far too many Americans 

are struggling to get ahead in today’s economy. With poverty rates stuck 

at historically high levels and far too many unable to find work, we need 

to make sure we’re doing all we can to help people get ahead. But before 

we try to address these problems, we need to make sure we fully understand them. That’s why we’re holding this hearing—to present a full picture of the challenges facing low-income individuals and families today. 

This hearing will also lay the groundwork for our efforts to fix the problem, providing us with the information we need to help more people find 

jobs, escape poverty, and move up the economic ladder.’’ 

FOCUS OF THE HEARING: 

This hearing will focus on current labor market trends and their impact on lowincome families and individuals, trends in poverty in recent years, how changing 

family and household dynamics impact economic wellbeing, and how Federal policy 

may influence these issues. 


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DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: 

Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit written comments for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page 

of the Committee website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select ‘‘Hearings.’’ Select the hearing for which you would like to make a submission, and click on the link entitled, 

‘‘Click here to provide a submission for the record.’’ Once you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a 

Word document, in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below, by 

the close of business on Tuesday, February 25, 2015. For questions, or if you 

encounter technical problems, please call (202) 225–3625 or (202) 225–2610. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: 

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. 

The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to format 

it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the Committee by a witness, any materials submitted for the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for 

written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee files 

for review and use by the Committee. 

1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be submitted in a single document via 

email, provided in Word format and must not exceed a total of 10 pages. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official 

hearing record. 

2. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose 

behalf the witness appears. The name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each 

witness must be included in the body of the email. Please exclude any personal identifiable information in the attached submission. 

3. Failure to follow the formatting requirements may result in the exclusion of a submission. 

All submissions for the record are final. 

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. 

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226– 

3411 TDD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). 

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. 

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available at http:// 

www.waysandmeans.house.gov/. 

f 

Chairman BOUSTANY. We will call this hearing to order now 

and welcome everybody to the Subcommittee and I will welcome 

our witnesses here shortly. 

Our first hearing this year is on the challenges facing low-income 

individuals and families in today’s economy. Our basic purpose as 

a Subcommittee, our purpose stated in the Subcommittee’s very 

title is to promote the human resources of this country. Those 

human resources, those individuals, that untapped potential, in 

many instances, are really today’s workers and their children and 

the workforce of tomorrow. 

Stretching back to the 1930s and accelerating into the 1960s, the 

Federal Government has operated an ever-growing arsenal of programs that provide benefits designed in some way to help low-income families with children as well as unemployed workers to 

move forward. The bad news—and on this, I think there is biparVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:45 Sep 07, 2016 Jkt 021281 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\WAYSPS\21281\21281.XXX 21281

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tisan agreement—is that those programs are not working as effectively as we would like, especially given the realities of today’s 

economy. 

And even though the pace has picked up lately, the current jobs 

recovery has been the slowest in recorded history. It has left far too 

many people unemployed, stuck in poverty, year after year. Incomes fell dramatically during the recession and really have not 

bounced back. Millions collected 2 years of unemployment benefits 

without finding a new job. Many simply left the workforce. Others 

transitioned into long-term disability benefits or food stamps or 

both, and the sad result has been a majority of Americans now believe the American dream of hard work and getting ahead is impossible to achieve. And younger workers, the background of our workforce for the next 40 years, are the most pessimistic about their 

chances. 

We also know American families are experiencing major stress. 

The stress is not just economic stress, but stress on the very fabric 

of family life as well. Declining marriage rates, rising shares of 

children born to single parents, and an increasing number of children spending years raised in single-parent homes adds to that 

stress and to the hurdles that must be overcome by programs designed to help them. 

Twenty years ago this Subcommittee faced a similar set of challenges in crafting what became the landmark 1996 welfare reform 

law. And in fact, by this point in February of 1995, this Subcommittee had already held an amazing eight hearings in less than 

a month. This documents some of that early work. So I am afraid 

we are a little bit behind, but we will catch up hopefully and move 

forward as the Committee continues to have hearings to address 

these problems. 

But back then, the late Subcommittee Chairman, the late Clay 

Shaw of Florida, sat in this chair and said Members of this Committee were on a rescue mission to save poor families. And in many 

respects, it worked. After 1996, the number of low-income parents 

collecting welfare checks fell dramatically as millions left welfare 

for work. Poverty fell to record lows for key groups as work and 

earnings rose. But over time, the roles of other low-income benefit 

programs, especially those not subject to the 1996 reforms, expanded even faster, even when the economy was growing. 

And while the number of people participating in these benefit 

programs increased, poverty rates remained unchanged or even 

worsened. Clearly, the economy and this broader array of anti-poverty programs haven’t been working as well as we would like to 

help all families move up the income ladder, and that is why this 

year we will engage in the first top-to-bottom review since 1996, of 

how Federal policies across the board can better support work, 

strengthen families, and move America forward. 

We will review our programs as well as their interaction with 

other key programs, like food stamps, housing, healthcare, so that 

we get a complete picture. We will cooperate with other subcommittees and committees on this. Subsequent hearings will explore how 

we could better engage low-income adults in work and training, 

what should we do to better coordinate benefits that families count 

on, what lessons may we learn from other countries, and how 


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should we use evidence to ensure we are making a real difference, 

a tangible difference in people’s lives. 

Our goal, consistent with the challenge set forth by Chairman 

Ryan last year, is not simply to cut programs or reduce spending; 

instead, it is to reform programs so that they create real ladders 

of opportunity so that families can climb to escape poverty and 

achieve the American dream. That is a big but essential goal for 

us to achieve if we want our families, and ultimately our country, 

to move forward. 

I am excited to work with everyone here, including our witnesses 

today as we get started. 

And with that, I would like to turn to Mr. Doggett for his opening statement. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

With nearly 5 years of month after month continuous private sector job growth and with 3 million new jobs created in 2014 alone, 

I believe we have made steady progress in overcoming the great recession set in motion by Wall Street fraud. While more and more 

attention in this Congress on both sides of the aisle focuses on 

what we can do for the middle class, we also need to be concerned 

with the many Americans who are just struggling to get up the 

first couple of rungs of that economic ladder to try to climb into the 

middle class. 

This Subcommittee, with its broad jurisdiction over many programs designed to provide opportunities for struggling families, 

should be a vital part of growing the middle class. 

Just one example, one of the issues we have dealt with in this 

Subcommittee is unemployed insurance. And in 2013, the last year 

on record, about 1.2 million people were not categorized as impoverished because they had unemployment insurance benefits to tide 

them over as they searched for work. 

The need for real, meaningful action is particularly evident in my 

home State of Texas. There, one out of every four children is below 

the poverty level, and about a third of all Texans live in the shadow of poverty, meaning that their income is less than twice the 

poverty threshold. 

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses, but particularly from Frances Deviney from the Center for Public Policy Priorities, who has provided objective, nonpartisan information on poverty in Texas and a range of social services there and across the 

country, and can comment on how some of the programs under our 

purview can help those in poverty. 

Our Subcommittee should be focusing on helping struggling families. Clearly, it is not enough to just throw money at the problem, 

as we so often hear. But neither is it a substitute, as is sometimes 

offered in this Committee, to merely throw words at the problem. 

Caring, soothing, empathetic words, but words and no meaningful 

legislative action. 

I believe there are four goals that are appropriate: First, support 

incentives that strike at the early seeds of poverty. Prevention, 

matters like the MIECHV or home visiting program that you referenced in your statement, the Protect Our Kids Act that we 

worked on in this Subcommittee, which had leadership from former 

Chair Dave Camp on. That commission on child abuse will have its 


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recommendations, I think, later this year and provide us an opportunity to take a look at their findings. 

I think a second area is to increase efforts to help people gain 

the skills that they need to secure jobs that can provide a path for 

a better life. An example that we heard about last session, Project 

QUEST in San Antonio, which has an 86 percent job placement 

rate, is focused on helping poor people obtain living-wage jobs and 

get the training and education and matching them up with where 

there is a specific need in the labor force. 

A third area is to eliminate barriers to work. Certainly, one of 

the biggest of those barriers is affordable child care. The President 

talked about this in the State of the Union address. Less than 20 

percent of the families federally eligible for child care assistance 

ever obtain any assistance. 

Finally, we need a reliable safety net for families that fall on 

hard times. In Texas, only one out of every 20 children living below 

the poverty line receive any direct TANF assistance. That is not 

temporary assistance for needy families; it is no assistance for 

most, all the time. 

Our experience since welfare reform, which I voted for myself in 

1996, shows that while we have experienced some progress, too 

often TANF has meant less and less for fewer and fewer. I believe 

we need to have evidence-based programs, but we need to look at 

the evidence and I am pleased that you will be focusing on review 

of that welfare law, so that we can see what we can do to help people escape poverty through good work, good jobs. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses and to continuing this discussion throughout this session of 

Congress. 

Thank you. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Doggett. 

Without objection, each Member will have the opportunity to 

submit a written statement and have it included in the record. 

And I want to remind our witnesses, as is customary, we have 

received your written testimony, and I would ask you to restrict 

your oral statements to 5 minutes, give us a summary, so it will 

save ample time for questions. However, without objection, all the 

written testimony will be made part of the permanent record. 

And on our panel this afternoon we will be hearing from four 

very distinguished witnesses. First, we have Ron Haskins, Senior 

Fellow, Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution; Scott 

Winship, the Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute 

for Policy Research; third, W. Bradford Wilcox, Visiting Scholar 

from the American Enterprise Institute; and Frances Deviney, Associate Director, Center for Public Policy Priorities, from Texas. 

Right? 

VOICE. Yes. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Welcome. Welcome to all four of you, and 

we look forward to each and every one of you providing some insights. 

So with that, Mr. Haskins, you will lead off. Thank you so much 

for being here. You may proceed with your testimony. 


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STATEMENT OF RON HASKINS, SENIOR FELLOW, 

ECONOMIC STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. HASKINS. Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Doggett, Members of the 

Committee, it is a great privilege to be here. I think it is an honor 

to testify, and I am glad to be invited. 

I want to concentrate on one thing. I brought a PowerPoint that 

I think will make it clear. This summarizes my testimony in these 

few words: ‘‘Low-wage work plus work support benefits reduce poverty.’’ It has happened in the past and I am going to show you how 

much it has happened. Our poverty rate would be at least 50 percent higher than it is now if it weren’t for these government benefits. So they are extremely effective. 

And I also want to point out, and I will conclude with this point 

as well, that this is a bipartisan approach. Why? Because Republicans favor work requirements. Half the Democrats in-house when 

welfare reform passed also favored them because they voted for it 

and implemented work requirements. And Democrats like to make 

sure people are out of poverty. I think a lot of Republicans like that 

too, so it is supplemented with benefits. 

Here is how it works. First of all, I want to call the Subcommittee’s attention to the fact that kids who are in female-headed families, as Brad will go into detail about, are five times or four times— 

it varies from year to year—as likely to be in poverty as kids in 

married couple families. We have experienced demographic for the 

last 40 years in the United States to increase poverty by putting 

more and more of our children in female-headed families where 

their poverty rates are four or five times as high. If we could stop 

that, we would make a lot more progress. We have made some 

progress despite it, but it is a big problem. So that is the first 

thing. If you can get kids out of female-headed families, and Brad 

will talk about this more. 

The second thing is the work part of the solution I am talking 

about. I think that this chart right here is one of the most surprising charts that we have had in public policy of the United 

States, having to do with social policy in the last 4 or 5 decades. 

The top line is all single parents. I want to focus your attention for 

a minute on the bottom line. These are never-married mothers. 

They are the most disadvantaged, the least educated, the least likely to work especially before welfare reform. 

And I want to point out in the middle of the chart that huge increase. I don’t think there is anything like that in the history of 

labor bureau statistics that shows this is roughly a 40-percent increase in work over a 4-year period by this most disadvantaged 

group of low-income mothers. So in that sense, welfare reform was 

successful. There is some problems. I will get to those in just a 

minute. 

And now I want to show you the impact it had on poverty. This 

is really, I think, the bottom line. So first, this is life in the state 

of nature. No benefits. Only earnings. And as you can see, the poverty rate based only on earnings dropped very substantially there 

during the welfare reform period, started before, and we could talk 

about that if you want to. 

And then, I think primarily because of the economy, it increased, 

but I would urge you to look at the very last data point. We are 


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still, we are still below where we were before welfare reform passed 

after the worst recession we have had since the Great Depression 

and also a recession in 2001. 

So I think this is a remarkable achievement. But we also subsidize the mothers’ earnings, and here is how we do it: First, we 

do it with—I can’t read the chart, but the first set of benefits is 

cash, and that includes earned income tax credit, SSI, and so forth. 

And as you can see, the poverty rate falls very substantially. It still 

follows the course of the economy and the course of employment because they are tied together, but it drops it very substantially. 

Now we give additional benefits, I think this is a food stamp benefit, and that also reduces the poverty rate. And then we add the 

earned income tax credit, the additional child tax credit and subtract taxes, so this is net of taxes. And the poverty rate still drops 

very substantially. 

And finally, there is a kind of a category of benefits that especially have to do with people that the mothers live with who earn 

money or other members of the family that earn money. 

And as you can see, we dropped the poverty rate by almost half 

here with this most disadvantaged group. And the most important 

point is, they have to work to get these benefits. They have to work 

to get them. So we have created a system in which to avoid poverty, you can’t get out of poverty unless you work. On welfare benefits, hardly anybody, or their children, gets out of poverty. So to me 

that is a lesson. This system needs to be expanded and preserved. 

But it has some flaws, and I want to just mention those in closing. I am going to mention three things just very quickly. The first 

one is that I think we ought to have work requirements in other 

programs. We are about to embark on a demonstration with the 

food stamp program that I think will be terrific. We have had a lot 

of problems trying to get people on food stamps to work. I think 

we can do a much better job and the States are going to help them 

and figure out how to do it. They are going to have random assignment evaluations, and I strongly suggest the Committee follow this 

carefully because it is a very important step. 

Second thing, we know that there is some disconnected mothers, 

a term that researchers and advocates have used. They are not on 

welfare, they don’t have a job, and some of them are worse off. 

Most of them are worse off. That is a problem. There have been a 

couple of experiments to try to figure out what to do about it. Nothing has worked very well. So I think that is something the Committee should tend to. 

And finally, I think we can do a lot more with work programs. 

When this Subcommittee and the full Committee passed the ARRA 

back in 2009, it had money—an emergency fund and States set up 

jobs and they supplied 260,000 jobs to low-income families. In the 

private sector and in the public sector. So that is a very promising 

thing. I strongly suggest you look into that. 

The bottom line is we have made a lot of progress. But we can 

make more. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haskins follows:] 


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Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. Winship, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT WINSHIP, WALTER B. WRISTON 

FELLOW, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH 

Mr. WINSHIP. Thank you. 

Chairman Boustany, Ranking Member Doggett, Members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

How to address the challenges facing low-income individuals and 

families is one of the most important questions facing policymakers 

today. To me, personally, I think it is the most important question. 

In my written testimony, I assess long- and short-term trends in 

the American labor market over the past 25 years. I discuss trends 

in employment, unemployment, and labor force participation between the business cycle peaks of 1989 and 2007, to show that 

many of the challenges we face, not all, but many that we believe 

to be worsening are not. 

I also describe what has happened since the onset of the Great 

Recession in order to examine the recent departure from these 

longer-term trends. My written testimony includes a series of 24 

fun charts displaying the trends that I will thankfully just summarize here. 

So, the highlights of my analyses are as follows: First, over the 

last 25 years, the enduring strength of the American economy, I 

think, shines through. In particular, there was no increase between 

1989 and 2007 in the share of adults who are unemployed or in the 

share of workers who are working part time involuntarily. This is 

true for adults between the ages of 18 and 24, those 25 to 54, and 

those aged 55 to 64, for both men and for women. Nor has employment fallen among women aged 25 to 54 or among older men and 

women. These trends are shown in Figures 1A through 1F and 2A 

through 2F in my written testimony. 

Second, the share of adults under age 25 who are employed has 

fallen over time. But the decline is primarily explained by increasing school enrollment, and it is entirely explained by an increase 

in the share of adults in that age group who tell Federal surveyors 

when asked that they do not want a job, and that is in Figures 1A 

and 1B and Figures 4A and 4B. 

Third, the share of men between the ages of 25 and 54, primeage workers, the share of those men who are employed has also 

fallen, again, driven by a fall in labor force participation. The drop 

in labor force participation is entirely explained, on the one hand, 

by increases in the share of men, who, again, say they do not want 

a job and the share who report that they are disabled. These are 

shown in Figures 1C and 4C. 

Now, the prevalence of self-reported disability and its rise over 

the past 45 years does not accord with trends in physical or mental 

health, which have not worsened over time. While much of the increase in disability is due to demographic change, policy changes 

that have made it easier to qualify for Federal disability benefits 

have increased the number of working-age men outside the labor 

force. 

Fourth, as shown in Figures 3A through 3F, unemployment 

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encing unemployment hasn’t risen. Because relatively few people 

are unemployed, however, relatively few, and many of them are out 

of work for less than 3 months, the risk of experiencing long-term 

unemployment remains very small. So if you take the most disadvantaged group you see in the day, the young black men, they 

experienced a 16-point increase between 1989 and 2007 in the 

share of unemployed who have been out of work for more than 26 

weeks. But the increase in the share of young black men in the 

labor force, jobless or not, who are unemployed that long, was only 

from 1 to 4 percent. 

Okay. Fifth, the Great Recession worsened most indicators of 

labor market strengths for sure. Employment fell significantly, and 

has recovered only among older adults. Unemployment remains 

higher than in 2007, and labor force participation remains lower 

among adults under the age of 55. 

Involuntary part-time work has increased as a share of all parttime work. Full-time work has declined as a share of employment 

among younger workers and among men aged 25 to 54. And the 

long-term unemployed grew as a fraction of the jobless, and the 

share of adults outside the labor force who said that they wanted 

to work, has risen. 

The worst is behind us, however, as nearly all of these indicators 

began improving between 2009 and 2011. The exception is the 

labor force nonparticipation among men and women, aged 25 to 54, 

which peaked in 2013 among women and probably in 2014 among 

men. 

Turning quickly to policy solutions, I think efforts to revive business creation would ensure the replenishment of new firms who account for an outsize share of new jobs. And they might therefore 

lower the duration of jobless spells that we see. 

Experimentation through State and local pilot programs would 

allow for the testing and evaluation of safety net reforms to promote work and to support low-income families. And reforms to Federal disability programs could benefit those with marginal ailments, real ailments but marginal ones, who in past years would 

not have dropped out of the labor force, while at the same time 

helping those with serious impairments who want to work become 

better integrated into the workforce. 

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that we do face economic challenges as a Nation. Low-income individuals and families face more 

challenges than other Americans. Too many are hard pressed to 

make ends meet while their children enjoy too little upward mobility. 

But I think it is important to keep in mind that the ability of 

the U.S. economy to provide work for those who seek it has not diminished. I think, above all, we need to remember that. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Winship follows:] 


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Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. Wilcox, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF W. BRADFORD WILCOX, VISITING SCHOLAR, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. WILCOX. Chairman Boustany, Ranking Member Doggett, 

and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you 

for inviting me to participate today. 

In thinking about today’s topic, the challenges facing lower-income families in our economy, let me be clear, I think economic factors, such as declines in the wages of less-educated men, and social 

factors, for instance residential segregation, inhibit economic mobility, contribute to poverty and make family life more challenging for 

lower-income Americans. 

But the research also indicates the Nation’s retreat from marriage is inhibiting economic mobility, making poverty more common, and driving up inequality. Where we are now we are witnessing a growing marriage divide. Where well-educated and affluent Americans enjoy comparatively stable, high-quality marriages, 

and lower-income Americans are less likely to benefit from the social and economic advantages associated with growing up within or 

being a member of a stable, married family. 

Today I am going to make three basic points about this retreat 

from marriage. First, I think we need to understand the demographic trends in play. And, in Figures 1 through 3 in my testimony, I outline these basic trends. In Figure 1, for instance, I show 

that marriage is in retreat across the board, but still today a majority of college-educated Americans in midlife are in their first 

marriage. By contrast, less than a majority of less-educated Americans are in a first marriage in midlife today in the United States. 

The trends in Figure 2 in nonmarital childbearing are even more 

dramatic. The figure shows, for instance, that less than one in ten 

college-educated moms are having their kids outside of marriage, 

or about one in two moms who don’t have a college degree are having their kids outside of marriage. So clearly, there is a big class 

divide in nonmarital childbearing. 

And then the third figure shows, I think most importantly, that 

family and stability is on the rise among less-educated Americans 

but remains comparatively not a problem for college-educated 

households. So kids who are being raised in lower-income households are experiencing more family instability and more single parenthood. That is not true for college-educated Americans. 

The second question or point that I want to dwell on is, why does 

it matter that marriage is in retreat in this country? Well, it matters because it undercuts the American dream, it fuels poverty, and 

it drives up economic inequality. For kids, for children, we know 

that they are less likely to acquire the human capital they need to 

thrive in today’s labor market. They are less likely to avoid major 

detours in young adulthood, things like a teen pregnancy or incarceration if they grow up outside an intact married family; and Figure 4 makes this point, I think, very clearly. 

And yet at the community level, we have seen from Harvard 

economist Raj Chetty that when it comes to poor kids’ mobility, 

quote, ‘‘The strongest and most robust predictor of mobility is the 


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fraction of children from single parents,’’ unquote, in a community. 

So there is clearly a link between mobility for our Nation’s kids 

and being raised in a family in a community where the two-parent 

family is strong. 

And then for adults, my own research with Robert Lerman at the 

Urban Institute indicates that men tend to work harder, they work 

smarter, and they make more money if they are married compared 

to their single peers. They make about $16,000 more compared to 

their similarly-credentialed peers if they are married. And this benefits both themselves, of course, and a family of which they are a 

part of. So all this is one reason why poverty is markedly lower 

among both married Americans and their families. 

Now, in my testimony I talk about why marriage is in retreat, 

and I talk about both economic factors, which progressives tend to 

stress, which I think are accurate, as well as cultural and policy 

factors, which I think conservatives tend to stress and are actually 

also accurate to an important extent. 

But given all this, what can we do to renew marriage and bridge 

America’s growing family divide? I have three brief comments on 

this. 

First, I think public policy should do no harm when it comes to 

marriage. And in my prepared testimony I detail some ways in 

which policymakers can eliminate or reduce marriage penalties in 

many of our means-tested policies. 

Second, I think public policy should explore ways to strengthen 

the economic foundations of middle- and lower-income family life in 

three ways: One, by increasing the child tax credit; two, by expanding the EITC for single adults; and three, by expanding and improving vocational education and apprenticeship programs, all of 

which would make men, especially lower-income men, more marriageable. 

Then third, I think that Federal and State governments operating in partnership with the private sector should support a public 

campaign around what Ron Haskins and Belle Sawhill call the success sequence where we encourage young adults to sequence schooling, work, marriage, and parenthood in that order. And a campaign 

like this could be modeled upon the success of the national campaign, the success they have achieved on teen pregnancy. 

Now, I recognize that some of the policies that I have proposed 

today, such as the EITC expansion, are not yet proven. Given that, 

it would be wise to roll them out in an experimental fashion as we 

are seeing right now in New York City. 

But we need to continue to experiment with a range of policy efforts like these if we seek to bridge the growing marriage divide 

in American life. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilcox follows:] 


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Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Ms. Deviney, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCES DEVINEY, PH.D., ASSOCIATE 

DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY PRIORITIES 

Ms. DEVINEY. Thank you, Chairman Boustany, Ranking Member Doggett, and the Members of the Subcommittee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to join this distinguished panel and 

testify about the challenges facing low-income families in today’s 

economy. 

And as an Associate Director at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, I track the wellbeing of Texas children and families. And 

I would like to focus on three points in my testimony today. 

First, to move America forward, we have to focus on what is best 

for kids, which means we have to focus on what is best for families 

as well. 

Second, to significantly reduce poverty, you must have strong job 

creation and a well-functioning safety net to be able to stabilize 

families. 

And third, we must look locally for innovative new strategies and 

then invest in them to take them to scale. 

So first, I would like to say that, you know, Texas is a bellwether 

for the U.S. regarding these issues. Now, it is not just because Texans say that we are the most important State in Texas, I know we 

are not, regardless of what people tell you, but it is just a basic 

numbers game. 

Today, one of every 11 U.S. kids lives in Texas. So, in other 

words, if we can move the poverty needle for kids in Texas, we can 

move the needle for kids across the country. 

So, we can all agree that the best way to end child poverty is to 

make sure parents have a good job. And in Texas, it would seem 

that we have the perfect formula for that. We are the leader in job 

creation among States, and we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. 

Unfortunately, working hard is not always enough to get by. 

Even with strong job creation and a low unemployment rate, child 

poverty, as we have said already today, is higher today than before 

the recession, and one of every four Texas kids lives below the poverty line. 

Why would that be? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but one of 

them is good-wage, mid-wage jobs disappeared during the recession, and during the recovery they were filled in by low-wage jobs. 

In fact, Texas relies on a larger percentage of low-wage jobs for our 

economy than most other States. And consequently, a big percentage of our working families live below the poverty line. 

So how do low-income workers get into good jobs? Well, ironically, it is not just about creating more good jobs. Texas’ data 

shows that. To get out of poverty, people need the stability that is 

provided by what we call the safety net to be able to train for and 

get those better jobs. Struggling to feed your family or find child 

care can become insurmountable barriers to improving your financial situation. 

Now, in Texas, during the recession, unemployment insurance 

was the only lifeline for more than 713,000 Texans who lost work 


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through no fault of their own. And the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made sure that 3 million Texas families didn’t go 

hungry when times were toughest over several years. And the 

earned income tax credit, one of the country’s most successful antipoverty programs, pulled over 760,000 Texans, over half of whom 

were kids, out of poverty in the years following the recession. 

Unfortunately, one key safety net program, TANF, falls short on 

this level of success. After years of disinvestment, TANF, the preliminary program for helping people in poverty get back on their 

feet and find work, only reaches 5 percent of all Texans in poverty. 

Today, Texas spends less than a quarter of our TANF block 

grant on basic cash assistance, work-related activities, and child 

care combined. The other three-quarters basically go to fill holes in 

our State budgets and allow the State budget writers to invest less 

overall in our anti-poverty efforts. 

But the TANF story can have a silver lining. There are proposals 

to allow States to use TANF dollars for more sectoral job training, 

and Texas has many strong innovative strategies that could be 

scaled up to the State level. As Congressman Doggett already mentioned, we have the Project QUEST in San Antonio, and we have 

a similar program called Capital Idea in Austin. They have had 

great success with both sectoral training and additional educational opportunities and connecting committed-yet-underemployed 

adults to higher education and to those employers who were in 

need of those highly-skilled workers. 

But of course, there is limitations to the successes that a local 

innovation can achieve on its own. Obviously, home-grown solutions are excellent at matching select community needs and thinking outside the box. But to have a significant impact on poverty, 

only significant investment at the State or Federal level can create 

the infrastructure to take small successes to scale. 

So how do we move America forward? As you continue these important hearings, I encourage you to ask yourself, what is best for 

kids? If a parental job is the best antidote to child poverty, ask 

yourself, what do families have to have in place to make sure they 

can get and keep a job? 

How do we create an environment that gives everyone the chance 

to compete and succeed? From that perspective, the safety net 

clearly serves as a foundational step to strengthening American 

families so that they can move out of poverty and stay there. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Deviney follows:] 


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Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

The buzzing you heard earlier were votes that were called. We 

have about, what, 5 or 6 minutes left, I believe, so I think what 

we will do now is the Committee will stand recessed. We will vote. 

We have three votes, and we will return promptly and resume with 

questioning of the witnesses. 

And with that, this Committee stands recessed. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Given that we have already heard your 

oral testimony, we will begin with questioning. And I will start off. 

One of the main responsibilities of our Subcommittee is to look 

at strategies to reduce poverty. And, of course, when we talk about 

poverty here in Washington, you know, we talk about numbers and 

all the information you provided is very, very compelling. But my 

hope is that we can eventually get to a point where we are getting 

beyond some of that and look at what kind of policies do we need 

to develop to help people escape from the poverty trap, to escape 

from, you know, the assistance programs and move up the ladder 

of opportunity. 

And I know, Mr. Haskins, I am certainly aware of the decades 

you have spent studying and working with your time on the Committee. Take a step back and give us a little indication of what 

someone, you know, what happens, what does it look like when 

somebody actually does make that transition out of poverty and off 

these assistance programs. 

We need to understand what is working, you know, whether it 

is anecdotal or—systemically what works and what doesn’t. And I 

know there are all kinds of other factors, whether it is substance 

abuse, addictions, things of that nature, too. But I want to, I guess, 

try to personalize this a little bit and give us some ideas on how 

we—what we need to look at to try to create that opportunity ladder. Because we have so much untapped potential in this country 

that is languishing and it becomes generational. 

So with that, I would just open that up for comment. 

Mr. HASKINS. First of all, I think it is very important to realize 

that we have millions of low-income mothers and fathers and people of that age, early 20s and so forth. Our goal should be to get 

them to work, not necessarily to escape the programs. Because, as 

I showed, the programs are what really takes them and their children out of poverty. So it is going to be very difficult. 

And the reason is simple, it is because at the same time that 

education has stagnated among low-income families, the demands 

of the American economy have increased very substantially. There 

is a wonderful book about this by Katz and Goldin at Harvard 

about the race between education and technology. And I doubt anybody on this panel disagrees, so I don’t think you can find anybody 

that disagrees, that to make $50, $60, $70,000, let alone over 

$100,000 now, you have to have skills and education. 

The one intermediate position that I think might be hopeful and 

that the Committee could look at more carefully is certificates in 

other kinds of skills, like welding and carpentry and so forth, and 

especially apprenticeships. Because then people—employers like 

that because they can pay a reduced wage for 2 years or however 


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long it takes for the person to get enough skills to be certified in 

whatever the area is. 

So I can tell you when we first passed welfare reform in 1996, 

a lot of people thought, both Republicans and Democrats, that once 

these mothers got in the workforce, they were going to start out 

making $8 or $9 or $10,000 a year. But come back 5 years later, 

to making 15 or 20. It did not happen very often. And it didn’t happen, I think, because they just did not get the skills and education 

they would need to move up. It wasn’t just a matter of experience 

in a, you know, in a service-sector job. They needed skills and education. 

To me, that is the big issue. The Committee can figure out ways 

to help low-income mothers that are rearing kids and working at 

the same time with very few benefits and so forth. If you can figure 

out how to help them get education of the kind that will actually 

help them, I think the community colleges have to be involved, that 

will be a big success. 

Ms. DEVINEY. May I add a comment to that, Chairman Boustany? 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Sure. Sure. 

Ms. DEVINEY. One of the research projects that we have done 

at the Center for Public Policy Priorities is to look at how much 

it actually costs for families to be able to make ends meet in each 

of our big metro areas in Texas. And to confirm the point that Dr. 

Haskins just made, what it would take for families to be able to 

make ends meet, cover basic rent based on Section 8 housing, to 

cover low-cost food, buying food in bulk, and never eating out, 

never eating much meat, not saving for, having any kind of emergency savings, not buying Christmas or birthday gifts, it would cost 

a two-parent, two-child family about $11 an hour each that they 

would have to make in Harlingen, which is our least expensive city 

in the State, and up to about $17 an hour per worker in the family 

for both two-parent families to be able to make ends meet. 

So our choices are this: Do we then expect businesses to pay all 

of their workers $17 an hour? Which, of course, we are going to say 

no, that is not, you know, practical or possible for any small business to try to meet. So then what do we have to do to be able to 

fill that gap for families so that they don’t fall through the cracks? 

And I just wanted to kind of reinforce what Dr. Haskins had to say, 

that, you know, it does require some additional supports to be able 

to subsidize work and help the families make ends meet. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Either of you want to opine on that? 

Mr. WILCOX. Just to sort of build on the apprenticeship and vocational front, we have, I think, to be aware of the fact that, sort 

of, college is not the only route for success in America today. And 

there has been good evidence from Bob Lehrman at the Urban Institute on apprenticeships. And also in terms of vocational education, career academies and our high schools across the country 

have been serving younger adults, particularly younger men, get 

the skills they need to flourish in today’s labor markets and also 

have higher marriage rates down the road as well. So thinking 

about education in a variety of ways and in diverse ways, includVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:45 Sep 07, 2016 Jkt 021281 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\WAYSPS\21281\21281.XXX 21281

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ing, kind of, vocational education, apprenticeship, well, you know, 

models as part of our thinking would be important. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. WINSHIP. I would endorse just about everything that the 

other three of my panelists have said. I would just add two other 

ideas. I think if we are looking at higher ed reform, I think income 

share agreements, which Brad’s colleague, Andrew Kelly, at AEI 

has talked about, the idea that you remove a small number of regulatory barriers and you could actually create a market for investors 

to finance higher ed for kids, which sort of the immediate benefit 

is you are helping kids pay for college. But I think in the long run, 

the more important benefit is it injects some competition and some 

accountability for higher ed institutions. 

If you are doing a terrible job getting your kids out and well educated and prepared for work, investors are going to offer pretty 

lousy returns to the kids who are attending your school. That 

forces you as an institution to think harder about what you are 

doing. 

I also think if we are talking about opportunity, you know, a lot 

of these gaps in terms of test scores and things like that are there 

at age 5. And so I really do think it is important to try to look at 

the early years. We don’t have great evidence at all on models like 

Head Start, for instance. I would argue that the evidence there is 

pretty discouraging. There is a lot of talk about pre-K. I think the 

evidence on pre-K is pretty ambiguous. 

I am not here to say that we have a ton of evidence of a model 

that works. But we could promote a program that essentially would 

give poor families a voucher to use in whatever way they think 

makes sense. Russ Whitehurst, who was a former colleague of mine 

when I was at Brookings, has proposed something he calls early 

learning family grants. And essentially it would voucherize our 

Federal early education policy. And by evaluating different approaches, hopefully find models that work better than others. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Well thank you. 

Just to conclude my time on this, these are all very good ideas. 

And going back to the formula, Dr. Haskins, that you put up there, 

I think your first slide, low-wage job plus the supports, we need to 

also look at the educational component that moves them on. 

But, Mr. Winship, you said something that caught my ear and 

that is metrics. Understanding—we have all these support programs. Which ones are really working and which ones aren’t? What 

can be done differently? And I think that is going to be a major 

task in this Subcommittee going forward. 

So thank you all. 

Mr. Doggett. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the testimony of each of our witnesses. 

Dr. Haskins, I think you referenced this in your original testimony but you think it is important that we extend the Family 

Home Visiting Program, Family Nurse Partnership, those types of 

programs that are about to expire this March? 

Mr. HASKINS. Right. And for several reasons. 

First, in the case of early education, Scott mentioned Head Start, 

for example I think the evidence that some of the home visiting 


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model programs are successful is very, very strong. I am thinking 

especially of the Nurse Family Partnership program. So to defund 

those I think moves us in the opposite direction. It is not just that 

kids are behind at 5, they are behind at 3. So the earlier, the better 

and that is where home visiting is so important. 

The second thing is a very nice aspect of home visiting is it assumes a mother’s competence. And it helps a mother become more 

competent and presumably with her other kids as well. And it isn’t 

just about direct interaction with the kid, it is about the rest of her 

life, about smoking, breastfeeding, drinking, and so forth. So I 

think that is a really important thing. 

The third thing is, that I hope I am going to be able to study, 

in fact, I have an appointment to talk to people in Texas because 

Texas has I believe more programs than any State in the country, 

and that is the organization at the State level. That is something 

we often ignore in Washington. But the State-level organization of 

home visiting programs, the States had to do, had to do a problem 

analysis, have a written plan, focus the resources on the communities that are most disadvantaged. We are right in the middle of 

this. We are having a lot of real high-quality evaluation. Everybody 

talks about accountability. Well, we have more accountability in 

this program than any program I am aware of. Plus we have a 

spectacular national evaluation going on that is being done by 

MDRC in New York City. We are going to learn a ton from that. 

So to me, if we stopped home visiting at all these various levels, 

it would be really a shame. 

Mr. DOGGETT. I really appreciate your testimony. Because, as 

you know, we don’t have a funding source identified at this point. 

Next month the program expires. And I think it is really important 

to renew it. It is not a panacea. But it helps parents be what they 

really want to be. And, as you mentioned, it has benefits for the 

parent and their attitudes about work and participation. 

Similarly, I believe your testimony indicates that it is important 

on the earned income tax credit to increase it for childless adults 

to better incentivize work and reduce poverty. 

Mr. HASKINS. Yes. Chairman Ryan has proposed that. And the 

President has proposed it. And the proposals by the President and 

Chairman Ryan are really similar in many respects. So I think it 

is a question of figuring out a way to finance it. And I think there 

would be a big bipartisan vote to do it. 

And it is really crucial because we have not had any success with 

young males, especially young black males. And if you could lure 

them into the labor force by increasing the amount of money that 

they will earn, because they are in the same situation as mothers, 

they are not going to earn much money, that would be a big step 

in the right direction. 

Mr. DOGGETT. And you support the more generous child tax 

credit provisions that will expire in 2017 if we don’t—— 

Mr. HASKINS. For the additional child tax credit, yes, absolutely. 

Mr. DOGGETT. And, Dr. Deviney, if I might redirect you to 

home for me in Texas—and since Chairman Ryan was mentioned, 

there is a belief in some quarters that if we will just package up 

everything from Pell Grants to school lunches, as the House Study 


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Group suggested a few years back, and put it all in one big package 

and just with a bow give it to the States, that they will figure out 

what the best way is to spend it and everybody will be happier. 

What has been the experience in Texas with doing that on TANF? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Well, that is a really good question. And Texas 

actually has a lot of things that we can teach both other States and 

the Federal level about those block grant programs. 

Now, one of the best things I can say about Texas is that we 

spend our dollars really wisely. Whether it be a big pot or a small 

pot, we spend them in the right ways. The problem with our TANF 

block grant in particular is that we are only dedicating a quarter 

of the money that we get to the original intention of the program 

in the first place. 

Now, the other three-quarters of the dollars we are spending, we 

are spending on goods things. I mean it is not like we are buying 

flowers and candy for everyone at the Capitol or anything. We are 

actually spending it on child welfare programs. And we are—— 

Mr. DOGGETT. In some cases, child welfare programs that the 

State was doing before it used this money—— 

Ms. DEVINEY. And that is the key point. So when you start 

using those dollars for other programs that the State has a mandate—— 

Mr. DOGGETT. And no maintenance of effort. 

Ms. DEVINEY. There is no maintenance of effort. And they are 

using it to fill, particularly during the recession when we had a decline in our State budget, we used those moneys to fill holes where 

the State had a responsibility to actually cover the basic services. 

And then we are relieved of that responsibility, so funding for antipoverty programs goes down overall. 

So that is a really big concern we have about block-granting programs. It is not that States are necessarily going to do bad things 

with the dollars. But you have lower investment overall in antipoverty programs. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you all. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. The gentleman, Mr. Young. 

Mr. YOUNG. I thank the Chairman for convening this hearing 

and the Ranking Member for his constructive participation. 

Really, it is an honor to be a Member of this Subcommittee and 

to have all of you here before us today. 

I see this area, poverty alleviation, addressing the needs and 

even aspirations of low-income individuals and families, as an area 

ripe for not just review and rigorous evaluation but innovation and 

restructuring here at the Federal level. The timing is right. There 

is a lot of public attention on this area. I think there is plenty of 

bipartisan agreement. 

I have to say I was really encouraged about the things I heard 

from our Ranking Member, a focus on prevention, on skills, on 

eliminating barriers to work, on ensuring we have a reliable safety 

net, on focusing not just on inputs or on specific programs and 

their authorization or so forth, but also on outcomes, more importantly on outcomes. 

And so my temptation is to skip to the subject of evaluation and 

try to elicit from all of you how we can ensure that more programs 

are rigorously evaluated, to get your thoughts on how many have 


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been rigorously evaluated and what we have learned. I think I 

know the answers to many of those questions. But I understand 

there will be further hearings that will be in a more targeted fashion focused on just those items. 

Since this is sort of a hearing to establish a baseline about the 

challenges facing our low-income population, I would like to ask a 

broader question of our panel and that is if one grows up poor, 

what impact does that have in today’s United States of America, 

on that child’s, that adolescent’s future prospects? The American 

dream has long been associated, it is a vague concept but I know 

it includes certain elements and these are pretty much commonly 

held, I think, among all Americans. It entails defining one’s own 

destiny. It means harnessing one’s own God-given capabilities and 

making the most of those capabilities. And it also entails becoming 

happier, at least pursuing happiness through earning your success. 

But there is at least a sense in the country and maybe it has 

been documented, maybe it is more than a sense, I think it is, that 

if one grows up in the humblest of circumstances, it is harder to 

move up the income ladder than if one grows up in a securely middle-class atmosphere or so forth. 

And so if you could speak to some of the data on this subject, mobility and how it drives—or lack thereof and how it might drive inequality and how that has changed over time, and the extent to 

which existing social programs here at the Federal level have 

helped mitigate some of the challenges of moving up the income 

strata, and how much further work we have to do? It is a big question. 

Mr. HASKINS. Let me say something quickly about the data. 

First of all, there is no question that if you are born into poverty, 

that you face serious disadvantages. And it has shown up generation after generation. I will just give you one number. If you divide 

the income distribution into 5ths and compare kids whose parents 

were in the bottom 5th, so it would be 20 percent needs distribution if we have perfect equality. There is more like 45 percent of 

the kids from the bottom, lined up in the bottom. And even more 

alarming, they have about a 5 percent chance of making it to the 

top. So we do not have equal opportunity in the United States. 

The second point, though, there are 60 percent of kids that escape. And if you focus on that, you say well, some kids can do it. 

Some of them even make it all the way to the top, not enough, but 

these kids are doing something right. 

So I think a main point is we tend to, especially when you read 

about this in the media, they say oh, warn these kids, they don’t 

have a chance. They do have a chance. But it is less of a chance 

than their peers that are from wealthier families. Now, we are not 

going to be able to change the income of all those families. 

Mr. YOUNG. Has it become harder in recent years for—— 

Mr. HASKINS. No. That was going to be my next point. 

Mr. YOUNG. Okay. All right. 

Mr. HASKINS. I think it is amazing, Scott and I used to write 

stuff and argue all the time, it hasn’t changed. And then a guy at 

Harvard named Chetty did a new study based on tax data and 

showed it hasn’t changed in three generations or four generations. 

So I think there is a—— 


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Mr. YOUNG. Okay, time is limited. So it hasn’t become harder 

in your opinion. But can we do better? I think I will see affirmative 

nods from everyone there. 

All right. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. I thank the gentleman. 

We will go to Mr. Holding next. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, the statistics and research around family structure 

and how it affects poverty and the economy, you know, are just 

mind numbing. It is stark. But, you know, they were stark when 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan first came out with his study, as you 

know, showing that correlation. 

What do you think the underpinning of the decline of the family 

is? Is it poverty came before it declines the family, so you result 

in more poverty? Or is there a different underpinning? And can you 

take it back in time to when we first started looking at this in the 

1960s? 

Mr. Winship, we will start with you. 

Mr. WINSHIP. Well, Brad is certainly the expert on this. So I 

won’t say very much. You know, I do think the argument that it 

is primarily economics really has to contend with the fact that, you 

know, our family structure problems have sort of arisen since the 

1960s. 

And even in the 1960s, we were a much richer society than certainly in the 19th century or any other earlier time in the 20th century when we didn’t have nearly as much single parenthood as we 

do now. So I do think at root the problems are around changes in 

the culture in the United States and in the policy incentives that 

are embedded in some of our programs but—— 

Mr. HOLDING. Mr. Wilcox, do you want to expand on that a little bit? 

Mr. WILCOX. Yeah, I guess I would disagree a little bit with Dr. 

Winship in terms of the economic story. And that is simply that we 

are seeing declines in real wages for less educated men and, probably more importantly, less of them are in the workforce for a variety of reasons. So there is an economics, you know, piece to this. 

And it is no accident, of course, as I said in my testimony, there 

is a marriage divide in America now where those who are educated 

and affluent are doing pretty well. And those who are less educated 

and lower income are doing a lot worse. So that is part of the story. 

And shifts in men’s place in the labor force, I think, since the 1970s 

helps to account for this growing marriage divide in America. 

But I think it is also the case that cultural changes, changing, 

you know, of views about the importance of marriage for having 

kids, about divorce, about fulfillment, you know—are part of the 

story. I think changes in our civic sort of sector, we are seeing 

much greater declines both in secular and religious engagement 

among less-educated Americans compared to college-educated 

Americans. That is part of the story. If you are not connected to 

these civic institutions, you have less support for getting and staying married. 

And then I think public policy too since the 1960s has often unintentionally penalized marriage. I have, you know, some quotes in 


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my testimony that reflect basically that a lot of our means-tested 

policies, you know, make it sort of—— 

Mr. HOLDING. Maybe we can tease that out with some examples. I mean, the research says that if a child is going to have a 

better chance of breaking that cycle of poverty, they come out of a 

two-parent household. So, you know, looking at some social policies 

now, you know, point out how support would differ between a twoparent family and for a single-parent family and to the degree that 

maybe it encourages a single-parent family rather than a two-parent family? 

Mr. WILCOX. So the EITC is complicated because, you know, 

when you have one member of a couple who is earning a lot more, 

there is actually, you know, some incentives to get married. But 

when you have both members of the couple who are earning, you 

know, comparable wages, they can incur some substantial penalties. 

But then more generally, many of our means-tested policies, like, 

for instance, Medicaid, you know, penalize folks who get married, 

you know, because obviously they are getting more income into the 

household. So there is an incentive for them just to cohabit or not 

get together if they are concerned about continuing to get access to 

Medicaid. 

So that would be one concrete example where I think many of 

our means-tested policies unintentionally make it economically 

non-rational, you know, for folks who are living together to go 

ahead and get married. 

Mr. HOLDING. So really some of the safety net, you know, that 

we have in place discourages a married, two-parent family is in 

sum what you are saying? 

Mr. WILCOX. In simple economic terms, that is true. What we 

don’t know is sort of what percentage of the low-income population 

is sort of making decisions about marriage based upon, you know, 

means-tested policies. And that is something we need to know but 

we don’t yet know the answer as to what share of our population 

is really making decisions about marriage and family life based 

upon how it would affect their access to something like Medicaid. 

Mr. HOLDING. All right. Ms. Deviney, do you want to use a few 

of my last seconds there to—— 

Ms. DEVINEY. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. 

Yes. The one thing that I wanted to add in was that in Texas, 

because of the way we use our TANF program and the amount of 

dollars that we dedicate toward cash assistance as one example of 

the means-tested programs, the average is about $74 per person 

and it is primarily child focused. And so I would argue that that 

amount of money per month is not encouraging women to stay single, that the benefits of having a two-income family would be much 

greater than the additional resources that they get from the $74 a 

month. 

Mr. HOLDING. All right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. DEVINEY. Thank you. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for calling this 

hearing, especially on this subject. It happens to be one that I have 

been familiar with all of my life. 

Practically everybody that I grew up with would have been called 

in poverty if we based it on the income of their families. Many of 

the people that I have known my entire life would have been impoverished based upon their incomes. And yet many of these people 

have overcome whatever it was that they initially were, in whatever ways that they came. 

Education and work opportunities we have mentioned a great 

deal. We also have learned and we know that much poverty can be 

found in single-parent families that are often headed by females. 

And that is because children oftentimes more often are with their 

mothers. 

I was intrigued, Mr. Winship, as you were talking about individuals who indicated that they did not necessarily want to work. I 

happen to believe that work is an absolute virtue. And that those 

individuals who are cut off from the world of work are missing an 

integral part of life, the fulfillment of having a job, going to work, 

earning money. 

Dr. Haskins, as you talked about people moving into the workforce and I am thinking that in the city where I live, especially in 

the building trades and places where there are apprenticeship opportunities, individuals are denied, barred from and locked out of 

that. 

I appreciate all of the programs that we talk about. And especially was I delighted, you know, to hear about home visiting. I 

have been engaged with it, I guess, for at least 40 years or more, 

from the time that I worked in community health centers and we 

were taking health workers out, knocking on people’s doors, telling 

them about what was available. And so it helps. 

Could each one of you just take a little shot at how do we increase two-parent families? I mean what, what do we do? What can 

we do to increase two-parent families? 

Mr. HASKINS. Here is one idea that has a lot of data behind it, 

the longer a woman waits, the more goods and income that she accumulates. And as she gets older, the males that she is likely to 

marry get older as well. And they also are more likely to work. And 

it helps a lot if she has not had a previous child, especially outside 

marriage. 

When you interview these mothers, they say they don’t want to 

have children. And yet they get pregnant. So I think if we had 

more effective policies to offer birth control to mothers, that that 

would be a step in the right direction. That is not going to be the 

whole solution. But that is a step in the right direction. Because 

they will get older without having children. They can continue 

their education or get experience in the labor market, have more 

time and more maturity to pick out a better male because they say 

they want to get married. 

So I think that would be one thing, we should have free, longacting, reversible forms of contraception available to low-income 

women. 

Mr. WINSHIP. So I sort of look at the earned income tax credit 

as a big policy success. You know, for a long time, I think we tried 


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to sort of convince people through moralizing that they ought to 

work more, that work was good for them. But I think it was really 

the earned income tax credit that convinced a lot of people to do 

it. It was a real financial incentive. 

I think we ought to consider a kind of married parent tax credit 

that says to heck with trying to convince people to get married or 

stay married and sort of moralize it, give them financial incentives 

to do it. So, that is what I am sort of thinking about. 

Mr. WILCOX. I think continuing to try to subsidize lower-income 

work, trying to minimize marriage penalties and means-tested policies and also trying to figure out some kind of cultural campaign 

like we had with teen pregnancy that would encourage Americans 

to put marriage prior to parenthood would also be helpful. Just 

three ideas. 

Ms. DEVINEY. I actually don’t disagree with anything that my 

other panelists have said so far. But I would say, I would reiterate 

the issue around birth control. Because in Texas, we have actually 

had an active attack on women’s health. And we have defunded 

women’s health extensively. It is not just about some of the more 

controversial issues but it is also about access to birth control and 

family planning that would actually help women to delay childbirth 

and engage in expanding their education and moving ahead. 

The other thing I would put forward, in addition to the ideas 

that have been put out here today, is using financial planning, 

which in Texas we have added to our curriculum a basic financial 

planning as part of the public education curriculum, where kids actually learn about what does it actually take to be able to make 

ends meet, how much money, what kind of job does it take, what 

kind of education do you have to get to get that kind of job to actually help you be able to make ends meet. 

And it is a real, you know, shock to the system to actually really 

look at those dollars and think like okay, if I am going to make this 

work in my life, what do I actually need to do? And you get it early 

and it helps you be able to set some goals and to plan. Now, is that 

going to prevent any kind of single parenting? You know, not on 

the grand scale. But it definitely puts people on a right path in 

thinking about what are the steps that it takes to be able to be financially secure as an adult. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. I thank the gentlemen. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The USDA Economic Research Service defines counties as being 

persistently poor. And their definition there isn’t a result of counties that for 30 years, that more than 20—20 percent or more of 

their population is considered in poverty. And what I found quite 

alarming, of the 353 persistently poor counties, 85.3 percent are 

from rural America, not urban areas. 

In fact, 13 of my 30 counties are classified out of those 353 as 

persistently poor. And we have had record levels of spending on 

anti-poverty benefits over the years. And I feel like rural counties 

are being left behind. And I would like for all of you, or whoever 

might want to respond, but I would like each one of you to address 

the rural-urban divide when you are looking at poverty and maybe 


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any ideas or strategies that you think might be addressed that 

could help rural America. 

Mr. HASKINS. There is likely to be a lot of silence. I have looked 

into this a little bit. And it is very difficult to find any programs 

that have been well evaluated that are able to solve the problems 

of rural America. I think the Congress makes a legitimate effort to 

try to make sure that the Federal resources are distributed fairly. 

Maybe they fail in some cases. But at least there is some equality 

there in investing resources. But it hasn’t resulted in kids being 

smarter and getting better jobs, more innovation, more job creation 

and so forth. 

So I think if you look at the numbers, it is a distressing picture. 

Because in addition to what you just described, there has actually 

been an exit in the last 3 or 4 years from non-urban counties. And 

there is more inequality, higher levels of poverty. So there is a 

whole range of problems. And I don’t think it has been a focused 

area of the media, of the scholarly world, of advocates. 

I am not sure we can do anything. We can’t point to something 

and say oh, it shows, like we can with home visits, oh, this works 

great. We don’t have things like that that I am aware. 

Mr. WINSHIP. I grew up in a working-class community in 

Maine. It wasn’t poor but it certainly wasn’t middle-class. And I 

think about kind of where some of my classmates have ended up. 

And it is interesting, I think there is this tension that you also see 

when you think about inner-city poverty. On the one hand, you can 

try to invest a lot in the community and convince people to stay 

and improve people where they are. 

An alternative strategy, I think, is to encourage more residential 

mobility. And, of course, it doesn’t help if you sort of want to preserve a robust community. But I think we underestimate the extent to which people better themselves by moving to opportunity. 

And so I am not quite sure this is the answer that you are looking 

for. But I do think we have seen residential mobility decline over 

the last couple of decades. And I think if there are ways through 

the Unemployment Insurance program or otherwise, to be able to 

help people if they want to move to places that are booming. 

If we could get a bunch of people to move to North Dakota or 

South Dakota these days, a lot of folks would be quite a bit better 

off, shifting people to where the opportunity is. 

Mr. WILCOX. And I think one thing that is important to realize 

too is, you know, for a long time, there was concern about sort of 

family life in inner-city America. But we now see that the trends 

I have been talking about today are distributed pretty evenly. So 

this retreat from marriage that I have been talking about today is 

very much a rural thing as well. 

So part of the problem facing many rural communities is that 

there are many more young adults who are cohabiting, having kids 

outside of marriage, experiencing family instability and single parenthood. And that affects both, you know, their odds of making it 

in America but also their kids’ odds of making it in America as 

well. 

Ms. DEVINEY. I am not going to pretend that I have a really 

good solid answer for you. But I can say this: What we are talking 

about there is resources. Because so much has been dedicated to 


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what happens in urban communities in terms of our anti-poverty 

programs because the resource is already there to build on, the infrastructure. So something that comes to mind for me is our combined spending program in Texas where we actually recognize 

when people are coming from poverty and are able to support 

schools with some extra funding to be able to help close that gap 

in terms of the needs of children in poverty. 

What I wonder is because we are talking about a gap in terms 

of resources for rural communities is if there would be an opportunity to be able to dedicate specifically job creation funding or 

other technology funding to rural communities as a way to balance 

out the gap between the infrastructure that already exists in urban 

communities and what exists in rural communities. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. Meehan. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you each for all of your work in this area. 

I mean it is so critical and so vital and important to actually be 

looking at what is effective and the most and best use of the resources that can be put into this. But I am still—I am struck because we can look at this at various points along the spectrum and 

each of them is influential. 

But I go back, let me start at the very beginning because I am 

getting a little ambiguity in your testimony. There was discussion 

about the effectiveness of Nurse Family Partnership and how there 

can be a real impact. And then we talked about pre-kindergarten 

education. And I think your testimony was that well, it is sort of 

not certain. What do we know? You are confident in an early program. We are still waiting to see. And I have had educators say 

to me oh, invest in pre-K. But is that effective? I mean, how do we 

know where the more effective ways are to make a difference? 

Mr. WINSHIP. Yeah again, I am going to largely defer to my colleague because Ron just wrote a book about evaluation. I think the 

difference between Nurse Family Partnership and pre-K is that 

the, I would say the evidence on Nurse Family Partnership and 

home visiting is less ambiguous than the pre-K, Head Start research. 

You can find studies that are supportive of pre-K and even Head 

Start. You can find a lot of studies, including federally-sponsored 

ones, that show that there is not a lot of reason to bank on it. 

Home visiting, the evidence has been more positive I think. I am 

actually a little bit more skeptical of it than Ron is. But I think 

the way that we are approaching it is exactly the right one where 

we are putting relatively small amounts of money into it. We are 

evaluating it. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Is it because of the spectrum of issues that can 

be resolved by somebody coming in in a Nurse Family Partnership 

may touch with health care, it may touch with getting somebody 

in a family counseling for abuse or something like that? I mean is 

that—are those things because of the broader issues you are dealing with, you are having more of an impact? 

Mr. WINSHIP. I think it is possible—certainly home visiting is 

less ambitious in terms of what it is trying to impart to people. You 

are trying to teach a fairly basic kind of parenting and healthcare 


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skills to parents, as opposed to, you know, Head Start, setting up 

a big institutional center and curricula. In some ways, it is more 

ambitious. That could have something to do with it but—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Haskins, did you have—— 

Mr. HASKINS. I think there is a way to bring some coherence 

to the literature. You are right, there has been a huge debate, especially since President Obama introduced a $90 billion or $80 billion, whatever it was, pre-K program and now childcare. We spend 

at least $30 billion the Federal Government states on these various 

types of preschool programs. 

A lot of that is Federal money. I think if you look at all the research, you will come away with this conclusion, that there are programs that have shown that they can be very successful, they boost 

kids’ test performance, the kids behave better, they do better in 

kindergarten, and they do better, say, through 3rd or 4th grade, 

but not very many programs like that. And the reason Head Start 

is such a disappointment—and you see the same thing in Head 

Start, you can find Head Start centers that are spectacular, their 

kids do well, they do well in the public schools. But most of them 

are average. Some of them are terrible. That is the problem. And 

this is—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Is it program to program? 

Mr. HASKINS. This is the Federal disease. We try to have a big 

network of programs. And to maintain quality control in 1,000 or 

5,000 or 10,000 programs is almost impossible. That is the nut that 

we have to crack. We have to figure out what the definition of a 

high-quality preschool program is, teacher training—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. But your point being that that same program 

may be well operated in Houston and, therefore, successful but not 

as well operated in a particular neighborhood in Cleveland and, 

therefore, not successful? 

Mr. HASKINS. Exactly. Exactly. But if you look carefully at the 

programs, you will see differences between those two programs, in 

the teachers, in the curriculum, in the way the whole building is 

organized, in the leadership, and in especially something new that 

a lot of people think is important, it is called coaching where teachers are constantly subjected, have the opportunity to have their 

performance appraised and someone, a master teacher, helps them 

do better. 

So if we could build a big network of thousands of preschool programs to do that, I think we would be successful. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Deviney, I am at the end of my—you have 

spoken about pre-K. You have talked about half-day pre-K. Is that 

different than full-day Pre-K? What are your thoughts about Head 

Start? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Well, what I can say is we have a lot of momentum in Texas around pre-K right now. Governor Abbott has it as 

one of his major initiatives that he wants to engage in this year 

which is really exciting. And the reason it is so exciting is because 

we actually have one of the preeminent researchers in pre-K, 

Aletha Huston, out of the University of Texas who just came out 

with a big study showing the impact of half-day pre-K, even looking at programs across the spectrum. 


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And I will say there is a quality difference between programs 

even across Texas or even within Houston. And even still, the impact doesn’t just go to 3rd grade, it goes to much further beyond. 

And a study by Texas A&M University shows the actual dollars 

saved. It is $1 invested for $9 saved down the road for better outcomes for kids because they are not going to jail, they are graduating at better rates. You have heard of these studies before, 

right? 

So we have data in Texas that actually shows the value of preK and the value of those programs. And if you can get them to be 

high quality, then you are actually going to have a better impact 

on kids. But even half-day pre-K is great. The reason half-day is 

different than full-day, is economic opportunities for parents. 

So if you have a half-day pre-K program and parents are trying 

to get their kids to the program and then go rush off and work for 

2 hours, because half-day pre-K is about 3 hours, and then come 

back, it doesn’t create a work opportunity and it ceases to be a 

work support. Full-day pre-K actually enables parents to be able to 

work for the most part a full day and then kids can stay in some 

after-school care if needed. And that really creates great economic 

opportunities for families. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member, for holding this hearing. 

Thank you, members of the panel, for being here. 

I was in Texas, I was in Houston on Sunday night. I am not sure 

of what it was called—it was a huge place, it was sponsored by the 

Houston Library and the Library Foundation. And there were hundreds, maybe 2,500 students, young children, parents, mothers, 

teachers. And these kids, elementary, middle school, seemed to be 

so bright and so smart, just intelligent, asking me all type of questions. 

I am not prepared to give up on single mothers. I see so many 

single mothers. I think we have to start where we are. I think it 

was the late Booker T. Washington who said, who founded 

Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, cast down your bucket where you are. That is where we are in America. Everybody is 

not going to get married. We are not going to force people to fall 

in love and get married. It is not going to happen. It is just not 

going to happen. Our society is a different society. We live in a different world. 

So we have to reach these mothers and fathers, to encourage 

their children and young people to get the best possible education. 

Education is the great equalizer. So if it is Head Start, early childhood education, wherever, we need to spend our resources. It rescues those that may be wavering or, we think may be lost. How do 

we do it? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Well, thank you for that point. I think that what 

we have been talking about a lot today is about the sanctity of 

marriage and about the decline of marriage. And the strategies we 

take are about trying to increase marriage before you actually get 

down the pike and you have a family, right? So increasing marriage is great. I am a developmental psychologist by training. And 


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I know that the research shows that kids do better and have better 

outcomes when they have two parents in the home. 

And from poverty measures, just from that basic math, when you 

have two people earning more money, you are going to have more 

income in the home. It is all, you know, all really good. But I think 

your point about starting where we are, we don’t give up on the 

kids that exist today. 

Mr. LEWIS. I think that is my point—we never ever give up. 

Ms. DEVINEY. Yes. We never give up on the kids. And one of 

the things that we actually put out a study recently looking at the 

economic opportunities for Texas women was that when you look 

at, even when women actually get higher education degrees or even 

just a post-secondary degree or even just a high school degree, they 

make less than a man who has more education than they do—I’m 

sorry, less education than they do. So a woman who gets a college 

degree makes less than a man with a high school degree. And so 

there is that gap between what kind of wages women can earn. 

Now, part of that is because of the different kinds of jobs women 

may be encouraged to go into. But a lot of it has to do with, even 

when you are looking within sector and even when you pull out the 

data just looking at women who have never left for childbearing, 

who have never—all these reasons we give, there is still a difference. And so one of the things I think we really have to focus 

on, in addition to trying to create good, solid, strong families for 

children, is making sure that women have access to the same economic opportunities that men do because the reality is we have single-parent families today that need support and need help. 

Mr. LEWIS. Is it different in a household headed by a woman 

or a household headed by a man? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Are outcomes different? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. Right. 

Ms. DEVINEY. To be honest, the research shows that it differs 

depending on the age of the child, it differs depending on the gender of the child. There are some differences. But what really matters most and some of the strongest research shows that children 

who are in chaotic homes, be they two-parent families or singleparent families, suffer the worst outcomes. 

So trying to create an environment where the family, whatever 

their structure is, has less of that toxic stress going on is going to 

have the best outcome for kids. Again, two parents earning two incomes supporting the child equally and loving them is always the 

best opportunity. But if that is not the case, what can we do to 

make sure that child has the same opportunities as other kids. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

Thank you for injecting the realism into the debate. It is important. And I can tell you it is my intent as Chairman of the Subcommittee to not leave anybody behind in this. And we have to 

focus on strategies that help single women with children to climb 

out of this and seek opportunity. So we will work with you on that. 

Ms. Noem. 

Mrs. NOEM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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It has been an interesting discussion for me because I look at 

what we have today currently in the United States and the situation we face with the different kind of households that children will 

come from, single, two parents in the home, whether they live in 

rural areas like all of South Dakota is or in urban areas. 

But I keep coming back to then how can we level the playing 

field? And it seems to me, and this is just my brain thinking during 

this hearing, that we could potentially get better outcomes if we 

have a program that has some kind of participation from the parents with the child. So if there is something required of the parents 

to do, you talked about home visits, because there is some participation with the parents and an opportunity for them to learn or 

benefit from that experience that potentially then helps the child 

go even farther and achieve even more, rather than a parent who 

might drop their child off at a Head Start program and then go to 

work and then leave them. 

Or are there other programs where it is more of a, I am thinking 

of, we have nutrition programs where some of them there have nutrition counseling that goes along with the program. Does that one 

do better than ones where there is a nutrition program where there 

is no counseling, it is just the benefits and there you go? 

Is there a general synopsis that you all can give me on do you 

believe we do have better outcomes in situations where there is 

some type of support, partnership, ability for the family to partner 

together to help that child succeed rather than just having a benefit? We will start with Ms. Deviney. 

Ms. DEVINEY. Thank you for that question. I actually spent a 

good portion of my early 20s working on a project called the Families and Schools Together Project. It is in several States. It was in 

Tennessee, North Carolina, and Washington. And it looked at how 

kids who were at risk for later juvenile delinquency or other kinds 

of negative outcomes as teens, if we intervened early, how would 

they do. And in that program, we actually made it a full family 

kind of wrap-around program where we actually engaged with parents and helped them gain skills to be able to support kids in doing 

homework and talking about being on time and talking about the 

importance of school and giving them parenting skills was a huge 

part of the program, in addition to being able to support the kids 

in terms of basic tutoring in math and reading support. They are 

just now releasing 20-year results on these kids. And it has been 

really exciting because what we have seen is that when you actually support not just the child but the whole family and you are 

supporting the concept of the family working together, creating 

that unit in support, you actually get much better outcomes for 

kids than kids who, our control group, didn’t participate. And so 

the kids were much more likely to delay childbearing. They were 

much more likely to have higher educational attainment. They 

were much more likely to have better earnings as an adult with 

these 20-year results. And so I think it points exactly to what you 

are saying is that when you kind of support the whole family as 

a unit, you really do get better outcomes for kids. The trick is that 

those kinds of programs, they are expensive. They are expensive. 

And so we have to decide as a country, you know, if we really do 

value the family unit, how are we going to back that up with the 


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support that they need to be able to make those really strong connections. 

Mrs. NOEM. And you may need to continue that support for an 

entire generation before you start to see the impact on your culture. Anybody else want to weigh in? 

Mr. HASKINS. Let me make two quick points. First of all, there 

is a new review that is about to come out by one of the best people 

in the field, a guy named Greg Duncan at the University of California Irvine. And he looked carefully into what is called a meta 

analysis of all the research literature on programs that are just 

preschool and ones that have a parenting component. But it is defined, it can’t be just sending a note home to the parents or have 

the parent meeting once a month or something like that. It has to 

be an actual program where they are working with the parents. 

And it does make a difference on average. Those programs are 

more successful. The second thing is that in the last 2 or 3 years, 

there has been a big movement called Two Generation programs. 

So in preschool, even in the public schools to some extent, in employment and training programs, the idea is to work with the parents and the child at the same time. And it has really caught on. 

I am not really sure why because the evidence is not great. But I 

think what it shows is that people believe just what you said in 

your question, that if you involve the parents, you are involving 

someone who is going to be with the kid until they are 18 and 

maybe more than that and still supporting them after that. If you 

can increase the bond between the parents and show parents, give 

them ideas about how to work with their children, that the program will be more successful. So I think there is a lot of agreement 

with that. We will see if it turns out. 

Mrs. NOEM. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. Mr. Reed. 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our 

panel for this conversation today. Just to try to solicit information 

here and also to try to start our conversation from a room of consensus, what are the barriers in your humble opinion as to what 

keeps people in poverty and from escaping poverty? Let’s start from 

the left and we will go all the way right. So what are the top three 

barriers? 

Mr. HASKINS. They don’t work enough. They don’t have enough 

education. And they have babies outside marriage, or divorce. And 

they try to raise children in a one-parent family. 

Mr. REED. Okay. 

Mr. WINSHIP. If I think about little kids and kind of what the 

big barriers are for them, I think to an extent we don’t appreciate 

the kind of upward-mobility problem in the United States. To a 

large extent, it is a failure of the country to have better outcomes 

for African American kids. 

Mr. REED. Okay. But what are the barriers here? I am going to 

run out of time. 

Mr. WINSHIP. So I think the two that I would mention would 

be growing up in unstable families, but also neighborhood-concentrated poverty. I think growing up in a place where a lot of people are poor and a lot of people have challenges. 


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Mr. REED. Unstable families, concentrated poverty. Mr. Wilcox, 

quickly. 

Mr. WILCOX. I would echo what Ron said. I would put a thumb 

also on doing more for kids who are not on the college track. 

Mr. REED. Okay. That is a barrier? Not doing more for college, 

that is an outcome, that is an action item. So what is the barrier 

of those kids not going into college? 

Mr. WILCOX. The barrier is we don’t do enough for kids who are 

not on a college track. 

Mr. REED. So an education. Education. Okay. Ms. Deviney. 

Ms. DEVINEY. So when you start in poverty, you are more likely 

to end up in poverty. So it is a huge barrier for kids who actually 

start in poverty. Poverty itself is a barrier. And that actually leads 

to you start out in the education system with gaps. So a huge barrier is closing the gaps in terms of language development. 

Mr. REED. So education. 

Ms. DEVINEY. Education. And then affordability of the options 

that help you move out of poverty. 

Mr. REED. So cost. Let me ask you this question, let’s take two 

of our largest welfare programs in America, TANF, cash welfare, 

and SNAP, food stamps. How does TANF measure addressing the 

education barrier? How do you measure that TANF is overcoming 

the education barrier? And does it? 

Mr. HASKINS. Well, you can look at the caseload over a period 

of time and see if their education increases. And the answer is it 

does not. And part of the reason there are—— 

Mr. REED. Sir, Sir, Mr. Haskins, does TANF require that the 

people that are administering the program have an outcome that 

the people that are participating in the program have an education 

component to their welfare check? 

Mr. HASKINS. No. 

Mr. REED. Okay. Is that a correct understanding from everyone? 

If one of the barriers is to overcome educational barriers, why 

doesn’t our program, cash welfare, one of our largest welfare programs in America have as one of its major drivers as an action 

item to get people an education? 

Mr. HASKINS. There is a straightforward answer. We gave the 

States, States can use the TANF dollars for education if they want 

to. Part of the idea of the TANF program in sharp contrast with 

AFDC, which it replaced, is that the States were going to be the 

real actors. They knew what their people needed. And they were 

going to use the resources for the most important thing for these 

families. And most States have not chosen to invest a lot of the 

money in education. And there are restrictions in the Federal statute about how much education they can get. 

Mr. REED. So it is countervailing to the goal that we are trying 

to get people out of poverty with and that is to get an education. 

There is a Federal statute that prevents us from achieving that 

goal. 

Mr. HASKINS. Yes. But for good reason. 

Mr. REED. And what is that reason? 

Mr. HASKINS. The reason was the Congress intended for the 

program to be a work program and not an education program. 

Mr. REED. Okay. 


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Ms. DEVINEY. But what we find in Texas is that because it is 

trying to get a job first, there are education and job training programs in Texas, but the real goal of the TANF program is to get 

somebody into a job. So if you can get into a really low-paying job 

first, then that is the push and it is not the push for education to 

be able to get to those better jobs. 

Mr. REED. Is that overcoming one of the barriers? So one of the 

barriers is education. 

Ms. DEVINEY. No. That is reinforcing the barrier. 

Mr. REED. That is reinforcing the barrier. That is what I would 

say. How about SNAP? Any requirement there that there be an 

education component to it? How about LIHEAP? How about housing, Section 8? This is one of my biggest concerns here, and I have 

been a big advocate of the old super waiver, the demonstration and 

the whole silo effect that we are seeing in this field across America 

and a lot of these programs actually have unintended consequences 

of keeping people in poverty because they are just not designed to 

work hand in hand and give people the tools to get out of poverty. 

Am I misreading anything, as my experience has told me as I 

looked across America, as to the problems with most of these programs? 

Ms. DEVINEY. For example, with the Supplemental Nutrition 

Assistance Program or SNAP, what we see there is when you look 

at a family’s budget and what it takes for them to be able to get 

by, what SNAP does is be able to allow families to put some of 

their money toward let’s say making sure they get gas in the car 

and paying rent. SNAP helps to stabilize families. 

Mr. REED. Aren’t you just essentially giving a person a fish and 

not teaching them to fish under that analysis? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Well, if there were education requirements that 

went with it, certainly that would be a different conversation that 

we could have. But right now, it does serve a very important point 

in that it helps to stabilize a family. Now, should we also then create opportunities for those families to be able to move ahead? 

Mr. REED. See, I’m looking forward too. I’m trying to reform the 

program. So going forward, wouldn’t it be wiser to put that type 

of reform in place, to say we are going to teach people how to fish, 

not just give them a fish? 

Ms. DEVINEY. So for many families who live in poverty and particularly extreme poverty, it is not just about putting food on the 

table. It is about so many barriers. 

And so I think we have to take a really close look at making sure 

that, what do we have to get families stabilized first, before we can 

actually help them to be able to move ahead? 

Mr. REED. That is a fair point. And I understand. So crisis, 

overcome the crisis—— 

Ms. DEVINEY. Yes. 

Mr. REED [continuing]. But then for the long term, why don’t we 

design programs, in my humble opinion, that give the people the 

tools to break through those barriers of poverty? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Certainly, giving people the opportunity to be 

able to access good jobs is the best pathway out of poverty, and our 

programs like SNAP should be stabilizing. 


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Mr. REED. But in order to have those jobs they have to have an 

educational component. They have to be able to pass a drug and 

alcohol test, I would assume, or a drug test. There are other barriers to getting that job that we have to overcome, correct? 

Ms. DEVINEY. Uh-huh. 

Mr. REED. All right, with that, I am sorry, Chairman. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BOUSTANY. I thank the gentleman. 

Well, I want to thank all of our witnesses for this very compelling discussion, your wonderful testimony, in helping us to examine 

the challenges facing low-income individuals and families. 

I think this has been a great foundation for us to start with, with 

the Subcommittee, and so I really appreciate all you have done to 

help us with these important issues. 

I appreciate you taking time to come here today. Your knowledge 

and experience is really important, and we are going to fall back 

on your knowledge and experience as we go forward with trying to 

solve some of these problems. 

Let me just say that if Members have additional questions for 

the witnesses, they will be submitted to you in writing, and we 

would appreciate receiving your responses within a 2-week period. 

Of course, all that will be made part of the record. 

And with that, the Subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:24 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Submission for the Record follows:] 


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