IB
Union Calendar No. 275
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 4090
[Report No. 107–460, Part I]
To reauthorize and improve the program of block grants to States for
temporary assistance for needy families, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 9, 2002
Mr. HERGER (for himself, Mr. SHAW, Mr. WATKINS of Oklahoma, Mr.
MCCRERY, Mr. ENGLISH, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Ms. DUNN of Wash-
ington, Mr. PORTMAN, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. CAMP, Mr. MCINNIS,
and Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means
MAY 14, 2002
Additional sponsors: Mr. BARR of Georgia, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. WILSON of
South Carolina, Mr. SHAYS, Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin, Ms. HART, and
Mr. PITTS
MAY 14, 2002
Reported with an amendment and referred to the Committee on Education
and the Workforce for a period ending not later than May 14, 2002, for
consideration of such provisions of the bill and amendment as fall within
the jurisdiction of that committee pursuant to clause 1(e), rule X
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic]
MAY 14, 2002
Committee on Education and the Workforce discharged; committed to the
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered
to be printed
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on April 9, 2002]
A BILL
To reauthorize and improve the program of block grants
to States for temporary assistance for needy families,
and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Personal Responsibility,
Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002’’.
SEC. 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS.
The table of contents of this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title.
Sec. 2. Table of contents.
Sec. 3. References.
Sec. 4. Findings.
TITLE I—TANF
Sec. 101. Purposes.
Sec. 102. Family assistance grants.
Sec. 103. Promotion of family formation and healthy marriage.
Sec. 104. Supplemental grant for population increases in certain States.
Sec. 105. Bonus to reward employment achievement.
Sec. 106. Contingency fund.
Sec. 107. Use of funds.
Sec. 108. Repeal of Federal loan for State welfare programs.
Sec. 109. Universal engagement and family self-sufficiency plan requirements.
Sec. 110. Work participation requirements.
Sec. 111. Maintenance of effort.
Sec. 112. Performance improvement.
Sec. 113. Data collection and reporting.
Sec. 114. Direct funding and administration by Indian tribes.
Sec. 115. Research, evaluations, and national studies.
Sec. 116. Study by the Census Bureau.
Sec. 117. Definition of assistance.
Sec. 118. Technical corrections.
Sec. 119. Fatherhood program.
TITLE II—CHILD CARE
Sec. 201. Entitlement funding.
TITLE III—CHILD SUPPORT
Sec. 301. Federal matching funds for limited pass through of child support pay-
ments to families receiving TANF.
Sec. 302. State option to pass through all child support payments to families that
formerly received TANF.
Sec. 303. Mandatory review and adjustment of child support orders for families
receiving TANF.
Sec. 304. Mandatory fee for successful child support collection for family that has
never received TANF.
Sec. 305. Report on undistributed child support payments.
Sec. 306. Use of new hire information to assist in administration of unemploy-
ment compensation programs.
Sec. 307. Decrease in amount of child support arrearage triggering passport de-
nial.
Sec. 308. Use of tax refund intercept program to collect past-due child support
on behalf of children who are not minors.
Sec. 309. Garnishment of compensation paid to veterans for service-connected dis-
abilities in order to enforce child support obligations.
Sec. 310. Improving Federal debt collection practices.
Sec. 311. Maintenance of technical assistance funding.
Sec. 312. Maintenance of Federal Parent Locator Service funding.
TITLE IV—CHILD WELFARE
Sec. 401. Extension of authority to approve demonstration projects.
Sec. 402. Elimination of limitation on number of waivers.
Sec. 403. Elimination of limitation on number of States that may be granted
waivers to conduct demonstration projects on same topic.
Sec. 404. Elimination of limitation on number of waivers that may be granted
to a single State for demonstration projects.
Sec. 405. Streamlined process for consideration of amendments to and extensions
of demonstration projects requiring waivers.
Sec. 406. Availability of reports.
Sec. 407. Technical correction.
TITLE V—SUPPLEMENTAL SECURITY INCOME
Sec. 501. Review of State agency blindness and disability determinations.
TITLE VI—BROADENED WAIVER AUTHORITY
Sec. 601. Program integration demonstration projects.
TITLE VII—EFFECTIVE DATE
Sec. 701. Effective date.
SEC. 3. REFERENCES.
Except as otherwise expressly provided, wherever in
this Act an amendment or repeal is expressed in terms of
an amendment to, or repeal of, a section or other provision,
the amendment or repeal shall be considered to be made
to a section or other provision of the Social Security Act.
SEC. 4. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The Temporary Assistance for Needy Fami-
lies (TANF) Program established by the Personal Re-
sponsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–193) has succeeded in
moving families from welfare to work and reducing
child poverty.
(A) There has been a dramatic increase in
the employment of current and former welfare
recipients. The percentage of working recipients
reached an all-time high in fiscal years 1999
and 2000. In fiscal year 1999, 33 percent of
adult recipients were working, compared to less
than 7 percent in fiscal year 1992, and 11 per-
cent in fiscal year 1996. All States met the over-
all participation rate standard in fiscal year
2000, as did the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico.
(B) Earnings for welfare recipients remain-
ing on the rolls have also increased significantly,
as have earnings for female-headed households.
The increases have been particularly large for the
bottom 2 income quintiles, that is, those women
who are most likely to be former or present wel-
fare recipients.
(C) Welfare dependency has plummeted. As
of September 2001, 2,103,000 families and
5,333,000 individuals were receiving assistance.
Accordingly, the number of families in the wel-
fare caseload and the number of individuals re-
ceiving cash assistance declined 52 percent and
56 percent, respectively, since the enactment of
TANF. These declines have persisted even as un-
employment rates have increased: unemployment
rates nationwide rose 25 percent, from 3.9 per-
cent in September 2000 to 4.9 percent in Sep-
tember 2001, while welfare caseloads continued
to drop by 7 percent.
(D) The child poverty rate continued to de-
cline between 1996 and 2000, falling 21 percent
from 20.5 to 16.2 percent. The 2000 child pov-
erty rate is the lowest since 1979. Child poverty
rates for African-American and Hispanic chil-
dren have also fallen dramatically during the
past 6 years. African-American child poverty is
at the lowest rate on record and Hispanic child
poverty has had the largest 4-year decrease on
record.
(E) Despite these gains, States have had
mixed success in fully engaging welfare recipi-
ents in work activities. While all States have met
the overall work participation rates required by
law, in 2000, in an average month, only about
1⁄3 of all families with an adult participated in
work activities that were countable toward the
State’s participation rate. Eight jurisdictions
failed to meet the more rigorous 2-parent work
requirements, and about 20 States are not sub-
ject to the 2-parent requirements, most because
they moved their 2-parent cases to separate State
programs where they are not subject to a penalty
for failing the 2-parent rates.
(2) As a Nation, we have made substantial
progress in reducing teen pregnancies and births,
slowing increases in nonmarital childbearing, and
improving child support collections and paternity es-
tablishment.
(A) The teen birth rate has fallen continu-
ously since 1991, down a dramatic 22 percent by
2000. During the period of 1991–2000, teenage
birth rates fell in all States and the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Declines also have spanned age, racial, and eth-
nic groups. There has been success in lowering
the birth rate for both younger and older teens.
The birth rate for those 15–17 years of age is
down 29 percent since 1991, and the rate for
those 18 and 19 is down 16 percent. Between
1991 and 2000, teen birth rates declined for all
women ages 15–19—white, African American,
American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander, and
Hispanic women ages 15–19. The rate for Afri-
can American teens—until recently the highest—
experienced the largest decline, down 31 percent
from 1991 to 2000, to reach the lowest rate ever
reported for this group. Most births to teens are
nonmarital; in 2000, about 73 percent of the
births to teens aged 15–19 occurred outside of
marriage.
(B) Nonmarital childbearing continued to
increase slightly in 2000, however not at the
sharp rates of increase seen in recent decades.
The birth rate among unmarried women in 2000
was 3.5 percent lower than its peak reached in
1994, while the proportion of births occurring
outside of marriage has remained at approxi-
mately 33 percent since 1998.
(C) The negative consequences of out-of-wed-
lock birth on the mother, the child, the family,
and society are well documented. These include
increased likelihood of welfare dependency, in-
creased risks of low birth weight, poor cognitive
development, child abuse and neglect, and teen
parenthood, and decreased likelihood of having
an intact marriage during adulthood.
(D) An estimated 23,900,000 children do
not live with their biological father. 16,000,000
children live with their mother only. These facts
are attributable largely to declining marriage
rates, increasing divorce rates, and increasing
rates of nonmarital births during the latter part
of the 20th century.
(E) There has been a dramatic rise in co-
habitation as marriages have declined. Only 40
percent of children of cohabiting couples will see
their parents marry. Those who do marry expe-
rience a 50 percent higher divorce rate. Children
in single-parent households and cohabiting
households are at much higher risk of child abuse
than children in intact married and stepparent
families.
(F) Children who live apart from their bio-
logical fathers, on average, are more likely to be
poor, experience educational, health, emotional,
and psychological problems, be victims of child
abuse, engage in criminal behavior, and become
involved with the juvenile justice system than
their peers who live with their married, biologi-
cal mother and father. A child living in a single-
parent family is nearly 5 times as likely to be
poor as a child living in a married-couple fam-
ily. In married-couple families, the child poverty
rate is 8.1 percent, in households headed by a
single mother, the poverty rate is 39.7 percent.
(G) Since the enactment of the Personal Re-
sponsibility and Work Opportunity Reconcili-
ation Act of 1996, child support collections with-
in the child support enforcement system have
grown 
every 
year, 
increasing 
from
$12,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1996 to nearly
$19,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2001. The number
of paternities established or acknowledged in fis-
cal year 2002 reached an historic high of over
1,500,000—which includes a nearly 100 percent
increase through in-hospital acknowledgement
programs to 688,510 in 2000 from 349,356 in
1996. Child support collections were made in
over 7,000,000 cases in fiscal year 2000, signifi-
cantly more than the almost 4,000,000 cases hav-
ing a collection in 1996.
(3) The Personal Responsibility and Work Op-
portunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 gave States
great flexibility in the use of Federal funds to develop
innovative programs to help families leave welfare
and begin employment and to encourage the forma-
tion of 2-parent families.
(A) Total Federal and State TANF expendi-
tures in fiscal year 2000 were $24,000,000,000,
up from $22,600,000,000 for the previous year.
This increased spending is attributable to sig-
nificant new investments in supportive services
in the TANF program, such as child care and
activities to support work.
(B) Since the welfare reform effort began
there has been a dramatic increase in work par-
ticipation (including employment, community
service, and work experience) among welfare re-
cipients, as well as an unprecedented reduction
in the caseload because recipients have left wel-
fare for work.
(C) States are making policy choices and
investment decisions best suited to the needs of
their citizens.
(i) To expand aid to working families,
all States disregard a portion of a family’s
earned income when determining benefit
levels.
(ii) Most States increased the limits on
countable assets above the former Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
program. Every State has increased the ve-
hicle asset level above the prior AFDC limit
for a family’s primary automobile.
(iii) States are experimenting with
programs to promote marriage and father
involvement. Over half the States have
eliminated restrictions on 2-parent families.
Many States use TANF, child support, or
State funds to support community-based ac-
tivities to help fathers become more involved
in their children’s lives or strengthen rela-
tionships between mothers and fathers.
(4) Therefore, it is the sense of the Congress that
increasing success in moving families from welfare to
work, as well as in promoting healthy marriage and
other means of improving child well-being, are very
important Government interests and the policy con-
tained in part A of title IV of the Social Security Act
(as amended by this Act) is intended to serve these
ends.
TITLE I—TANF
SEC. 101. PURPOSES.
Section 401(a) (42 U.S.C. 601(a)) is amended—
(1) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by
striking ‘‘increase’’ and inserting ‘‘improve child well-
being by increasing’’;
(2) in paragraph (1), by inserting ‘‘and serv-
ices’’ after ‘‘assistance’’;
(3) in paragraph (2), by striking ‘‘parents on
government benefits’’ and inserting ‘‘families on gov-
ernment benefits and reduce poverty’’; and
(4) in paragraph (4), by striking ‘‘two-parent
families’’ and inserting ‘‘healthy, 2-parent married
families, and encourage responsible fatherhood’’.
SEC. 102. FAMILY ASSISTANCE GRANTS.
(a) EXTENSION OF AUTHORITY.—Section 403(a)(1)(A)
(42 U.S.C. 603(a)(1)(A)) is amended—
(1) by striking ‘‘1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000,
2001, and 2002’’ and inserting ‘‘2003 through 2007’’;
and
(2) by inserting ‘‘payable to the State for the fis-
cal year’’ before the period.
(b) STATE
FAMILY
ASSISTANCE
GRANT.—Section
403(a)(1) (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(1)) is amended by striking sub-
paragraphs (B) through (E) and inserting the following:
‘‘(B) STATE FAMILY ASSISTANCE GRANT.—
The State family assistance grant payable to a
State for a fiscal year shall be the amount that
bears the same ratio to the amount specified in
subparagraph (C) of this paragraph as the
amount required to be paid to the State under
this paragraph for fiscal year 2002 (determined
without regard to any reduction pursuant to sec-
tion 412(a)(1)) bears to the total amount re-
quired to be paid under this paragraph for fiscal
year 2002.
‘‘(C) APPROPRIATION.—Out of any money
in the Treasury of the United States not other-
wise appropriated, there are appropriated for
each 
of 
fiscal 
years 
2003 
through 
2007
$16,566,542,000 for grants under this para-
graph.’’.
(c) MATCHING GRANTS FOR THE TERRITORIES.—Sec-
tion 1108(b)(2) (42 U.S.C. 1308(b)(2)) is amended by strik-
ing ‘‘1997 through 2002’’ and inserting ‘‘2003 through
2007’’.
SEC. 
103. 
PROMOTION 
OF 
FAMILY 
FORMATION 
AND
HEALTHY MARRIAGE.
(a) STATE PLANS.—Section 402(a)(1)(A) (42 U.S.C.
602(a)(1)(A)) is amended by adding at the end the fol-
lowing:
‘‘(vii) Encourage equitable treatment of
married, 2-parent families under the pro-
gram referred to in clause (i).’’.
(b) HEALTHY MARRIAGE PROMOTION GRANTS; RE-
PEAL
OF
BONUS
FOR
REDUCTION
OF
ILLEGITIMACY
RATIO.—Section 403(a)(2) (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(2)) is amend-
ed to read as follows:
‘‘(2) 
HEALTHY
MARRIAGE
PROMOTION
GRANTS.—
‘‘(A) AUTHORITY.—The Secretary shall
award competitive grants to States, territories,
and tribal organizations for not more than 50
percent of the cost of developing and imple-
menting innovative programs to promote and
support healthy, married, 2-parent families.
‘‘(B) HEALTHY MARRIAGE PROMOTION AC-
TIVITIES.—Funds provided under subparagraph
(A) shall be used to support any of the following
programs or activities:
‘‘(i) Public advertising campaigns on
the value of marriage and the skills needed
to increase marital stability and health.
‘‘(ii) Education in high schools on the
value of marriage, relationship skills, and
budgeting.
‘‘(iii) Marriage education, marriage
skills, and relationship skills programs, in-
cluding parenting skills, financial manage-
ment, conflict resolution, and job and career
advancement, for non-married pregnant
women and non-married expectant fathers.
‘‘(iv) Pre-marital education and mar-
riage skills training for engaged couples and
for couples interested in marriage.
‘‘(v) Marriage enhancement and mar-
riage skills training programs for married
couples.
‘‘(vi) Divorce reduction programs that
teach relationship skills.
‘‘(vii) Marriage mentoring programs
which use married couples as role models
and mentors in at-risk communities.
‘‘(viii) Programs to reduce the dis-
incentives to marriage in means-tested aid
programs, if offered in conjunction with
any activity described in this subpara-
graph.
‘‘(C) APPROPRIATION.—Out of any money
in the Treasury of the United States not other-
wise appropriated, there are appropriated for
each 
of 
fiscal 
years 
2003 
through 
2007
$100,000,000 for grants under this paragraph.’’.
(c) COUNTING OF SPENDING ON NON-ELIGIBLE FAMI-
LIES TO PREVENT AND REDUCE INCIDENCE OF OUT-OF-
WEDLOCK BIRTHS, ENCOURAGE FORMATION AND MAINTE-
NANCE OF HEALTHY, 2-PARENT MARRIED FAMILIES, OR
ENCOURAGE
RESPONSIBLE
FATHERHOOD.—Section
409(a)(7)(B)(i) (42 U.S.C. 609(a)(7)(B)(i)) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
‘‘(V) COUNTING OF SPENDING ON
NON-ELIGIBLE FAMILIES TO PREVENT
AND REDUCE INCIDENCE OF OUT-OF-
WEDLOCK BIRTHS, ENCOURAGE FORMA-
TION AND MAINTENANCE OF HEALTHY,
2-PARENT MARRIED FAMILIES, OR EN-
COURAGE
RESPONSIBLE
FATHER-
HOOD.—The term ‘qualified State ex-
penditures’ includes the total expendi-
tures by the State during the fiscal
year under all State programs for a
purpose described in paragraph (3) or
(4) of section 401(a).’’.
SEC. 104. SUPPLEMENTAL GRANT FOR POPULATION IN-
CREASES IN CERTAIN STATES.
Section 403(a)(3)(H) (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(3)(H)) is
amended—
(1) in the subparagraph heading, by striking
‘‘OF GRANTS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002’’;
(2) in clause (i), by striking ‘‘fiscal year 2002’’
and inserting ‘‘each of fiscal years 2002 through
2006’’;
(3) in clause (ii), by striking ‘‘2002’’ and insert-
ing ‘‘2006’’; and
(4) in clause (iii), by striking ‘‘fiscal year 2002’’
and inserting ‘‘each of fiscal years 2002 through
2006’’.
SEC. 105. BONUS TO REWARD EMPLOYMENT ACHIEVEMENT.
(a) REALLOCATION OF FUNDING.—Section 403(a)(4)
(42 U.S.C. 603(a)(4)) is amended—
(1) in the paragraph heading, by striking ‘‘HIGH
PERFORMANCE STATES’’ and inserting ‘‘EMPLOYMENT
ACHIEVEMENT’’;
(2) in subparagraph (D)(ii)—
(A) in subclause (I), by striking ‘‘equals
$200,000,000’’ and inserting ‘‘(other than 2003)
equals $200,000,000, and for bonus year 2003
equals $100,000,000’’; and
(B) 
in 
subclause 
(II), 
by 
striking
‘‘$1,000,000,000’’ and inserting ‘‘$900,000,000’’;
and
(3) 
in 
subparagraph 
(F), 
by 
striking
‘‘$1,000,000,000’’ and inserting ‘‘$900,000,000’’.
(b) BONUS
TO
REWARD
EMPLOYMENT
ACHIEVE-
MENT.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Section 403(a)(4) (42 U.S.C.
603(a)(4)) is amended by striking subparagraphs (A)
through (F) and inserting the following:
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—The Secretary shall
make a grant pursuant to this paragraph to
each State for each bonus year for which the
State is an employment achievement State.
‘‘(B) AMOUNT OF GRANT.—
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—Subject to clause
(ii) of this subparagraph, the Secretary
shall determine the amount of the grant
payable under this paragraph to an em-
ployment achievement State for a bonus
year, which shall be based on the perform-
ance of the State as determined under sub-
paragraph (D)(i) for the fiscal year that
immediately precedes the bonus year.
‘‘(ii) LIMITATION.—The amount pay-
able to a State under this paragraph for a
bonus year shall not exceed 5 percent of the
State family assistance grant.
‘‘(C) FORMULA FOR MEASURING STATE PER-
FORMANCE.—
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—Subject to clause
(ii), not later than October 1, 2003, the Sec-
retary, in consultation with the National
Governors Association, the American Public
Human Services Association, and the Na-
tional Conference of State Legislatures,
shall develop a formula for measuring State
performance in operating the State program
funded under this part so as to achieve the
goals of employment entry, job retention,
and increased earnings from employment
for families receiving assistance under the
program, as measured on an absolute basis
and on the basis of improvement in State
performance.
‘‘(ii) SPECIAL RULE FOR BONUS YEAR
2004.—For the purposes of awarding a
bonus under this paragraph for bonus year
2004, the Secretary may measure the per-
formance of a State in fiscal year 2003
using the job entry rate, job retention rate,
and earnings gain rate components of the
formula 
developed 
under 
section
403(a)(4)(C) as in effect immediately before
the effective date of this paragraph.
‘‘(D) DETERMINATION OF STATE PERFORM-
ANCE.—For each bonus year, the Secretary
shall—
‘‘(i) use the formula developed under
subparagraph (C) to determine the perform-
ance of each eligible State for the fiscal year
that precedes the bonus year; and
‘‘(ii) prescribe performance standards
in such a manner so as to ensure that—
‘‘(I) the average annual total
amount of grants to be made under