By Marisa Trevino, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – When Mesquite resident, Maria Medellin, received a surprise summons from the White House to share her welfare-to-work success story, Maria had one fear - flying. The 24-year-old, single mother of two had never before flown.
Luckily, that was her only fear.
Unlike most welfare-to-work parents, Maria didn't have to be afraid of who would watch her boys, ages 7 and 3, while she was gone. Her parents routinely cushion that fear by caring for their nietos while Maria works her part-time UPS job and attends classes at the local junior college.
But Maria would be the first to admit it's a double-edged blessing. On the one hand, the grandparents provide a safe, loving environment but, because many times they are on fixed incomes themselves, there's not much else they can offer.
On the other hand, aside from a peace of mind, the downside for parents, according to Maria, "is not being totally independent because you have to depend on your parents for everything."
It is the very concept of dependence that Washington has tried to eradicate through its welfare reform measures. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 strove to move people dependent on welfare into the workforce. To help these people, it was recognized that they would need some assistance. The assistance took the form of a grant known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF.
On September 30, TANF expires. Since May, both the House and the Senate have released their new versions of welfare reform for the upcoming reauthorization of the TANF grant. Each version has its share of hits and misses but the one vital point each version misses by a long shot is the amount of money allotted for childcare assistance.
The Senate finance bill recommends increasing child care funding totaling $5.5 billion over five years, whereas, the House thinks a one billion dollar increase is more than generous.
Policy analysts agree that if the TANF were to pass with either funding recommendation, states wouldn't be able to maintain their current child care programs nor help the number of welfare-to-work parents who need that vital assistance for child care if they are to be the success stories Washington so eagerly wants to showcase.
Though the White House is proud to parade people like Maria, no one is claiming that those who have gone to work are finding themselves free of poverty. They simply have a new title: the working poor.
According to Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty's March 2002 report, "the majority of young poor children live in working families." The U.S. Census found poor families with a working mother spend three times as much on the family budget for childcare than families who are not poor.
If the White House had done their homework, they would have discovered that Maria is the success she is today because the very thing that brought her to UPS was the necessity of having a second income since her other paycheck went towards child care.
Maria remembers how difficult it was to see practically her whole paycheck go towards child care with just $23 left over for diapers. Fortunately for Maria, she found a company that not only encourages higher education but also ensures a pay scale above minimum wage and a benefit package that provides for everything a parent needs, except child care. If Maria didn't have her parents, that expense would be too much for her.
As it is, too many parents don't have Maria's fortunate childcare arrangement. Unless a more realistic amount of childcare assistance is allotted by Congress, those families trying to pull themselves out of welfare dependency and the ranks of low income will continuously spiral backwards, not upwards.
There needs to be an amount allotted that would not only give the children a fighting chance to be prepared for the kind of academic success that eluded their parents but a sum that would enable the parents to actually save money and envision a future with hope rather than fear.
Marisa Trevino is a writer from Rowlett.