--- title: Republican Job Requirements Won’t Get People to Work description: Republic demands to change TANF work requirements won't get more Americans working canonical: https://time.com/6282245/job-requirements-debt-ceiling/ author: Joshua McCabe article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-05-24T15:35:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:23:51.992Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why the Republican Job Requirements Push Won’t Actually Get People to Work og:description: Republic demands to change TANF work requirements won't get more Americans working og:url: https://time.com/6282245/job-requirements-debt-ceiling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77872ee4b71d5886/698a3d4c457a5220c7d67a2e/GettyImages-1257521547.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-ECONOMY-DEBT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the Republican Job Requirements Push Won’t Actually Get People to Work twitter:description: Republic demands to change TANF work requirements won't get more Americans working twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77872ee4b71d5886/698a3d4c457a5220c7d67a2e/GettyImages-1257521547.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why the Republican Job Requirements Push Won’t Actually Get People to Work > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=70d84548-423f-4a69-a70a-400dad388b50&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: What to Know About the History of the Debt Ceiling [Watch (HLS stream): What to Know About the History of the Debt Ceiling](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/sJUEUsSN.m3u8) (2:57)  _Published 2023-05-26. The Biden Administration remains locked in a standoff with congressional Republicans over raising the federal debt ceiling, just two weeks before the nation is set to default on its obligations for the first time. The U.S. government hit its congressionally imposed $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in January, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the country could run out of cash as early as June 1 if Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are unable to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling._ by [Joshua McCabe](https://time.com/author/joshua-mccabe/) ## Joshua McCabe May 24, 2023 3:35 PM UTC by [Joshua McCabe](https://time.com/author/joshua-mccabe/) ## Joshua McCabe May 24, 2023 3:35 PM UTC As the debt ceiling crisis looms, [negotiations are increasingly likely](https://rollcall.com/2023/05/18/tighter-tanf-requirements-may-be-ripe-for-debt-limit-accord/) to include Republican demands to tighten work requirements in state Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) programs, which provide cash assistance to families in poverty. Each state runs its own TANF program with considerable discretion over who is eligible and how exactly states spend the funds they receive from a federal block grant. To hold states accountable and ensure they meet the goal of moving families from welfare to work, the federal government mandates that states meet certain work participation goals among TANF beneficiaries. Republican proposals for restoring work requirements are aimed at states rather than directly at families. The TANF provisions in Speaker McCarthy’s [Limit, Save, and Grow Act](https://www.speaker.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LSGA%5Fxml.pdf) would change how states calculate what is called their work participation rate (WPR) for beneficiaries. As part of the 1996 welfare reforms under President Bill Clinton, the federal government began requiring states to meet a target where 50 percent of single parents and 90 percent of married parents receiving cash assistance were engaged in at least 30 hours of “work activities” each week (the target is only 20 hours for parents with young children). Eligible work activities include subsidized or unsubsidized employment, community service, vocational training, and job readiness programs. Work activities sound fine on paper. Still, case workers and beneficiaries alike often complain that they end up spending more time [tracking countable hours to comply](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chapter-2-the-compliance-machine/id1091031079?i=1000606512303) with these requirements – filling out paperwork and checking boxes – than engaging in the sort of [integrated casework](https://pathwaystowork.acf.hhs.gov/intervention-detail/369) focused on ensuring access to family services, intensive job-search assistance, and job training reflecting local employer demands that has proved to be more helpful in getting families back on their feet. It is unclear whether chasing countable hours leads to permanent employment that allows families to leave welfare for good. The 1996 reforms also included a [caseload reduction credit (CRC)](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12150) that allowed states to reduce their WPR target if they could show they were reducing caseloads over time. The idea was that states should not be penalized for making progress on reducing welfare rolls – a core goal of the reforms. In 2021, [only six states](http://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Restoring-Work-Requirements-in-TANF%5Fone-pager55.pdf) were held to a 50 percent WPR standard. The majority use CRCs to get a lower standard, including those with 0 percent standards. Republicans are targeting what they see as three loopholes that allow states to dodge the full 50 percent standard. The first would update the baseline year for which states can receive credit for declining caseloads to 2022\. It was initially set at 1995 levels, but because caseloads declined quickly after 1996, few states were held to the 50 percent standard. Congress reset it in 2005, but states [quickly found other ways](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/understanding-temporary-assistance-needy-families-caseloads-after-passage-deficit) to reduce their WPR standards. These are the other two loopholes Republicans want to close. One of these is provisions allowing states to “buy down” their WPR standard by increasing state spending beyond federal requirements. The other is so-called “small check” schemes where states increase the number of TANF beneficiaries meeting work requirements by sending $10 or $20 monthly checks to already working parents receiving other benefits. If Republicans are successful, states might finally be subject to WPR much closer to 50 percent. Still, there are reasons to doubt that these changes will lead to any meaningful increase in employment among families in poverty. First of all, states are surprisingly creative in finding new loopholes. The “small check” and “buy down” schemes that emerged after the 2005 reforms are a case in point. States will likely find new ways to reduce their WPR standard or inflate the portion of families meeting work activities requirements. Moving some families to solely state-funded programs not subject to federal requirements, for example, would help states reduce TANF caseloads and receive credit for it. Why are states so keen to take evasive maneuvers? Are they trying to avoid accountability or stymie efforts to make TANF beneficiaries self-sufficient? Hardly. The vast majority of caseworkers and families are both invested in moving from stigmatized welfare to dignified work. The reality is that the changes would recreate [impossible federal standards](https://www.route-fifty.com/health-human-services/2022/06/fixing-impossible-standard/368109/) that states simply can’t meet at current funding levels. So instead they’d have to get creative. Even the [much-touted welfare-to-work pilot programs](https://aspe.hhs.gov/jobs-evaluation-monthly-participation-rates-three-sites-factors-affecting-participation-levels) that led to the 1996 reforms could not achieve the rates of work participation that states would be held to under the current Republican proposal. The [Congressional Budget Office](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57702) recently identified several programs and supports that can meaningfully increase employment, but the best options are costly. Increasing childcare subsidies, for example, would increase employment among single parents but comes with an annual $3 billion price tag. We also know integrated casework that goes beyond the “checking boxes” casework incentivized by federal standards increases employment – if properly funded. Meeting federal standards would be an uphill struggle under the best of circumstances. It becomes impossible after nearly three decades of declining federal support for TANF supports and services. The $16.5 billion TANF block introduced in 1996 was not designed to keep up with inflation or population growth. As a result, the real value of federal funding has [declined by almost 50 percent](https://www.niskanencenter.org/inequitable-and-inadequate-reforming-federal-grants-for-state-social-assistance-programs/) over time. Republicans are asking states to do more than ever with less than ever. Until Congress begins matching tighter federal mandates with [additional financial support for states](https://www.niskanencenter.org/tanf-needs-more-accountability-and-better-funding/), expect them to continue evading WPR standards and make little headway on Republicans’ goal of moving more families from welfare to work. Instead, states will respond to this unfunded mandate by creatively finding new ways to reduce caseloads on paper so they can claim that caseload reduction credit. Whether they do it by moving some families off TANF into other [solely state-funded programs](https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/12-7-06tanf.pdf) or deterring and disqualifying families by burying them under [onerous new paperwork requirements](https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ideas42-Work-Requirements-Paper.pdf), the results will be the same: work requirements done this way will fail to work. ## Transcript Condiments are warning that the US is on the precipice of economic Calamity. If the government can't come together and raise the federal debt limit, now, this isn't the first time, the US has been in this situation. We've been here before and the debt-limit crisis has always been resolved by Congress, but this year's B is turning out to be a lot more messy than previous years. And since this debt ceiling is one of the few must pass pieces of legislation. Both parties have to use this issue as an opportunity to take a political stand and exact concessions to cut back on government spending, it would cause the government to default on its legal obligations for the first time in history, creating a financial crisis and threatening jobs for everyday Americans. It could even potentially put the US get risk of a recession. The only country that has a debt ceiling is Denmark the debt limit or the debt. Ceiling is a cap on the total amount of money that the federal government is authorized to borrow to fulfill its Financial Obligations. Everything at the government spends, money on military to Social Security, and Veterans Benefits has to be funded, either through tax revenue, or debt. And for the last two decades, the US has been running a budget deficit. Adding 25 trillion dollars in debt. So the treasury Department now says that the government could be unable to issue new debt and pay its bills as early as June 1st. But Congress has always acted when called upon to raise. The debt limit has 1960 Congress. Acted 78 separate times to permanently raise temporarily extend a revised the debt limit. The debt ceiling has become an increasingly political issue in recent years, especially when power in Washington is divided as it is right now, Republicans control the house and Democrats control the presidency in the Senate. Democrats have been very United on this front. I have insisted from the beginning that they won't accept any concessions attached to a deal and continue to blame Republicans for taking the country's credit hostage in our stash. Continue to me as we speak is not a fact and they're making progress I made clear time and again to falling on a national debt is not an option but that no negotiation strategy, may be impractical with the June 1st deadline approaching in less than two weeks. The number of places that we are still far apart. I mean, it didn't seem like the economy, plays a pivotal role in how Americans cast their ballots. So, the outcome of these debt limit discussions, could shape. What happens in 2024, particularly if Biden was unable to raise the debt limit before defaulting, or if he accepts concessions that undo, his legislative accomplishment, for instance, progresses. My see him as weak. If he accepts, the GOP is proposed, work requirements for federal aid. This is a very big moment for Joe Biden. 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