October 12, 2006

 Social Conservatives Are Targeting States’ Welfare Funding

Social conservatives who succeeded in defining a purpose of federal welfare reform as “promotion of marriage” under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program now are targeting your states’ welfare funding with their “1 Percent Solution Campaign.”

This national Campaign was launched under the leadership of Chris Gersten, a former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official, who now directs the Fatherhood and Marriage Leadership Institute. He is working state-by-state with conservative state legislators to redirect 1 percent of your state’s welfare funds to support “marriage promotion programs.”  Given that states are struggling to meet the work participation and other stringent requirements of TANF funding – to help TANF recipients move into gainful employment – this would represent a serious diversion of your welfare budget and a limitation on your state’s flexibility to decide where to direct your funding.

This “1 Percent Solution Campaign” takes the marriage promotion and responsible fatherhood movement to the next level.  Indeed, it is a Campaign that seeks to change decisions you already have made regarding expenditures of TANF funds, since only a few states have used their TANF dollars in this way.   

As you know, when Congress reauthorized TANF earlier this year, it created the Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Program and funded it to the tune of $150 million a year over the next five years.  Now, the “1 percent Solution Campaign” is working with your conservative colleagues in the legislature to grab additional monies to promote marriage rather than to help women become economically self-sufficient. The total amount of money they seek to redirect is significant: one percent of the $38 billion per year or $380 million of federal TANF funds to states.

To learn more about “1 percent Solution Campaign” – and how to respond! –contact Jennifer Tucker, the Center’s vice president at: jtucker@centerwomenpolicy.org.