CHAPTER 9
WELFARE-TO-WORK PROGRAMS

WORK, A MAJOR ISSUE OF WELFARE REFORM

The focus of the welfare debate has changed dramatically since the 1980s. During the early 1980s President Ronald Reagan attacked waste, fraud, and abuse in the welfare system, the conventional attack upon public welfare at the time. Since the late 1980s, however, the issue of welfare reform has focused on work programs as a means of getting people off welfare and keeping them off. Both among Republicans and Democrats, a consensus developed that jobs, either in the private sector, subsidized by the government, or both, were the most promising answer to the welfare problem.

By the summer of 1996 a number of welfare-reform proposals had been offered for consideration in Congress. Virtually all proposals contained a basic requirement that welfare recipients get jobs, either on their own or with the help of local welfare agencies. At the same time, because of the recognition that effective job training can be very expensive, job-training funds in many proposed welfare bills were dropped or severely limited.

These and similar proposals, which have been around for at least a generation, are generally referred to as "work-fare" programs. Both liberals and conservatives agree that those able to work for their income should do so. A job allows individuals the independence and sense of accomplishment brought by providing for oneself and one's family. Furthermore, finding people jobs reduces the financial burden on state, local, and federal governments.

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA; PL 104-193) in August 1996 laid the foundation for a work-based welfare system. The welfare law replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the JOBS (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills) training program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and created financial incentives for welfare-to-work programs. States must require TANF recipients to work after two years on assistance or face reductions in funding. In addition, with a few exceptions, they may not use federal funds to assist families for longer than five years. Funding for the various state work programs is included in federal block grants to states. Within the general guidelines of the act, each state designs its own program to promote job preparation and work.

HISTORY OF WORKFARE

In 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the nation's first federal welfare program. At that time, 88 percent of welfare families received assistance because the father of the family had died. Since the nation had a surplus of workers and a shortage of work, keeping widows at home allowed mothers to care for their children and also kept these women from competing with men in the job market. Public work programs for men, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), were also created to combat unemployment.

Community Work and Training Program

The 1962 Public Welfare Amendments (PL 87-543) authorized the first federal workfare program—the Community Work and Training Program (CWTP). This program allowed the states to choose whether or not they wanted to enroll adult AFDC recipients in workfare programs. The CWTP provided standards for health and safety, minimum wages paid as welfare benefits, training, work expenses, and child care. Those enrolled had to work in meaningful public-service jobs that did not displace other workers. Between October 1962 and June 1968 CWTP workers received $195 million. When the program ended in June 1968, it had involved thirteen states and as many as 27,000 participants.

Economic Opportunity Act

The next major initiative, Title V of the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) of 1964 (PL 88-452), allowed states to develop "work experience demonstration projects" using EOA funds instead of welfare funds intended for AFDC mothers, unemployed fathers, and other needy adults. If participants in the work-experience program were also AFDC recipients enrolled in the CWTP, Title V funds supplemented welfare benefits. The demonstration projects spent $300 million, with participation peaking at 72,000 persons in 1967. Title V expired in June 1969.

The available information on the EOA and the CWTP is not adequate to evaluate the programs' actual impact on the lives and futures of the participants. The sparse data available showed that 36 to 46 percent of the participants found employment after job training or after leaving a work-experience project. However, the researchers do not know what would have happened without the programs' intervention or how long these individuals remained employed.

Work Incentive Program

The Work Incentive (WIN) program was enacted through the 1967 Social Security Amendments (PL 90-248) to make AFDC recipients less dependent on welfare. The 1967 amendments were in response to a 24 percent increase in the number of female-headed families eligible for AFDC and were intended to provide training for these women.

The WIN program required registration of "appropriate AFDC recipients," with each state defining who was "appropriate." The program included regular counseling as well as referral and assistance in obtaining basic education and job skills. The recipients in classroom and on-the-job training might receive a small incentive payment. The program was supposed to develop an "employability" plan for each recipient. But by 1971 it became apparent that most participants in the program were not finding jobs.

The Social Security Act was amended in 1971, 1980, 1982, and 1984 to improve the WIN program. The WIN program was phased out by the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) training program. All states enrolled in WIN had to introduce the JOBS program by October 1990.

Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973

The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973 (PL 93-203) consolidated several federal employment and training programs, not all of which focused solely on low-income job seekers. Targeted at economically disadvantaged people, including those on welfare, the CETA training programs lasted about ten years. In 1979 about 90 percent of the 1.2 million participants in the major CETA programs were economically disadvantaged—71 percent were in poor families, and 18 percent were AFDC recipients.

Food Stamp Workfare

The Food Stamp Act of 1977 (PL 95-400) authorized seven urban and seven rural workfare demonstration projects that operated between 1979 and 1980. The 1981 amendments to the Food Stamp Act (PL 97-98) expanded the program and granted authority to all states and localities to establish workfare programs for food-stamp recipients. The work programs were similar to the previously discussed workfare programs. Noncompliance (not participating in the work program) resulted in the loss of eligibility for food stamps.

After the first year, a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) study could not determine the overall costs and benefits. A later GAO study found that during the 1981 expansion phase, those in the workfare demonstration projects reduced their receipt of food stamps at a greater rate than those not on workfare.

Job Training Partnership Act

In 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) (PL 97-300) replaced CETA. Title II-A of this act provided block grants to the states for training and related services for economically disadvantaged people, especially those receiving cash assistance and food stamps. State and local governments administered these programs within federal guidelines. The aid was intended to increase the participants' future employment possibilities and earnings and to reduce their dependence on welfare. Services provided by this program included job training, help in finding work, counseling, and other assistance designed to prepare the participant for a job.

In a typical year during the 1970s, more than one million new people were enrolled in the job-training program. By 1984 the number had dropped to 716,200 as budgets were cut in half. Budgets (in 1990 dollars) continued to drop after 1986. As a result, so did the number of new enrollees, which declined from one million in 1986 to 635,300 in 1994.

The number of terminees (people who had completed the program) also dropped sharply between 1990 and 1997, from 307,935 in 1990 to 175,647 in 1994 and 147,717 in 1997. Only 45 percent of those who enrolled in the program in 1997 completed it. In 1997, 68 percent of those participating in these programs were female and 32 percent were male. Almost half (45 percent) were non-Hispanic whites, about one-third (34 percent) were non-Hispanic African-Americans, 17 percent were Hispanics, and 5 percent were from other races.

In 1997 the majority (57 percent) of terminees were between thirty and fifty-four years of age, while 41 percent were between twenty-two and twenty-nine years of age. Only 2 percent were fifty-five years and older. In the same year, 57 percent of those who completed the program were high school graduates, and 21 percent had an education beyond high school.

Critics of the JTPA programs claimed that the most employable individuals from the eligible population were selected to participate in the program. They believed that this had been fostered by the heavy use of performance-based contracts, in which the amount paid to a private trainer of JTPA participants was based on the number of participants placed in jobs. Therefore, contractors tended to screen out eligible applicants who might be difficult to place. The strongest evidence of this selection process was in the educational attainment of those in the program, over half of whom were high school graduates. However, it is also possible that those people with higher educational levels were more likely to apply for the program.

The JTPA program was repealed by Congress in 1998 and replaced in 2000 by the Workforce Investment Act, discussed later in this chapter.

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT. Title II-B of JTPA authorized a summer employment and training program for economically disadvantaged youngsters ages sixteen to twenty-one. Under this program, 100 percent of the participants had to be economically disadvantaged. Services included a full range of remedial education, classroom and on-the-job training, and some work experience for which the young people were paid a minimum wage.

As with the training program discussed earlier, outlays and participation dropped after 1985. Funding decreased from $776 billion in 1985 to $663 billion in 1991 to $643 billion in 1998 (in constant 1990 dollars). Participation dropped from 767,600 in 1985 to 555,200 in 1991, to 495,100 in 1998. (See Table 9.1.)

The summer employment and training program was repealed by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. Summer employment programs for young persons are continuing as part of other programs for low-income youth.

Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Training Program

JOBS was another program intended to help welfare families obtain education, training, and employment so that they could become self-sufficient. JOBS, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was also designed to provide these individuals with supportive services, such as child care. Each state was responsible for determining the structure of its JOBS program. This responsibility helped direct the training toward unique needs and job opportunities within each state. The Family Support Act of 1988 (PL 100-485) required states to replace any existing WIN programs with JOBS programs.

The target groups for the JOBS program were persons who had received AFDC for at least thirty-six months

over the previous sixty months, parents under twenty-four years of age who did not have a high school diploma or a GED and who were not in school when they applied for AFDC, parents under twenty-four years of age with little or no work experience in the previous year, and members of families in which the youngest child was sixteen years or older. In a majority of cases, the parent was female. Unlike previous laws, the act required participation in JOBS by parents of children as young as three years old and permitted states to include participation of mothers with children as young as one year old. As described by the HHS, the JOBS program:

• Emphasized education, particularly literacy and remedial education. Basic education, in this context, was defined as literacy and remedial education, English as a second language, and a high school diploma or the equivalent.
• Provided training and work experience for jobs that existed. Emphasis was on short-term, goal-oriented training. JOBS was designed to use and coordinate with other job-training programs that were already in existence. It encouraged community participation in programs such as community-based business and volunteer organizations. Work-training programs were targeted at areas that needed specific types of skills to match job opportunities.
• Gave states flexibility in program design. The federal government created the broad standards, but the states designed the programs to best suit their needs.
• Allowed women to choose relatives, independent contractors, or day care centers, within state fiscal constraints, as child-care providers. States used vouchers, direct payments, or other types of financing to compensate child-care workers.

Every state JOBS program was required to include plans to provide education to those without a high school education, offer job-skills training, and teach the person how to get and hold a job. With a few exceptions, the program had to provide some form of schooling designed to get a high school or equivalent diploma if the person was a parent under twenty years old with no high school education. Similarly, the state had to provide educational programs unless the person had a specific employment goal that did not require a high school diploma if the person was over twenty years of age and without a high school or equivalent diploma.

JOBS required the state to supply child care to mothers who needed it. The state also had to provide transportation and other services if the parent needed them. If the family lost AFDC eligibility because the parent had found a job, the family could get a year of transitional child care and Medicaid. This transition period was intended to help the family adjust to its new situation and be able to somehow replace the child care and health services offered under the JOBS program. Basically, the JOBS program created a new government compact with welfare recipients. It promised to give them more training, supply transportation, furnish day care for their children, and provide Medicaid to protect their health, while the welfare recipient was required to get either an education or a job.

Funding for the JOBS program significantly increased potential federal financing. The federal matching rate was 90 percent, up to a state's WIN allocation for 1987. Funds for JOBS programs beyond that amount were matched at the Medicaid rate or 60 percent, whichever was greater. The total federal financing matched was set at a cap of $800 million in 1990 to rise to a cap of $1.3 billion in 1995. There were no limits on child-care funding, which was matched at the Medicaid rate, which ranges from 50 to 80 percent, depending on the state. Generally, federal authorizations permitted about 10 percent of welfare recipients to participate in JOBS programs at any one time. In a typical month in 1994, 579,213 people were participating in JOBS programs.

The JOBS program was replaced by TANF under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

Job Corps

The Job Corps program was first authorized in 1964 by the Economic Opportunity Act. After 1982, it was authorized by Title IV-B of JTPA. The program serves economically disadvantaged youth ages sixteen to twenty-four who show both the need for and the ability to benefit from an intensive and wide range of social services provided in a residential setting. In 2001 there were 118 Job Corps centers in the United States offering basic education, vocational skills training, work experience, counseling, health care, and other job-related services. About 88 percent of the trainees live at the centers while they are enrolled in the program.

In the 1997–98 program year, about 60 percent of the enrollees were male; 50 percent of new students were African-American; 28 percent, white; and 16 percent, Hispanic. Seventy-eight percent were high school dropouts, and 63 percent had never worked full time. Thirty-three percent of Job Corps enrollees in 1997 came from families on public assistance.

In 2000 the average enrollee stayed in the program for 7.1 months. Those who graduated from the program were enrolled longer, an average of 10.6 months. Almost all (91 percent) program graduates (those either receiving their high school diploma/GED or completing a vocational trade course) got a job after leaving, continued their education, or entered the military. The hourly wage received by graduates was $7.97 per hour, up 6.4 percent from 1999.

Funding for the Job Corps was not cut as dramatically as that for other work programs had been, and participation remained relatively stable. Following a decline between 1982 and 1986, outlays increased gradually each year to $977 million (in constant 1990 dollars) in 1998. The average number of new enrollees per year was 68,476 between 1999 and 2003. The number of new enrollees in 2003 was estimated to be 68,454 with an estimated $1.6 billion outlay. (See Table 9.2.)

In a four-year longitudinal study, Does Job Corps Work? Summary of the National Job Corps Study (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, 2001), John Burghardt and his colleagues found that compared to a control group of youth who did not participate in the Job Corps, the Job Corps participants: showed positive gains in education and training; were employed in higher-paying jobs; and were less dependent upon public assistance. (See Figure 9.1.)

The Job Corps has been administered under the Workforce Investment Act since July 2000, following the repeal of the JTPA.

Workforce Investment Act

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA, Public Law 105-220) was passed by Congress in 1998 and replaced the JTPA. In 2003 the combined estimated outlays for job training programs for adults and youth equaled $2.1 billion. (See Table 9.3.) The WIA differs from the JTPA in several ways:

• Under the WIA, "one-stop" centers have been created to improve service delivery to adults. These centers provide training, assistance with job searches, and comprehensive assessment.
• The minimum income eligibility standards of the JTPA were eliminated under the WIA. All unemployed adults over age twenty-two who have had difficulty locating a job through traditional channels are eligible for the program.
• Participants in the WIA may choose their training courses and providers.

WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR TANF RECIPIENTS

The purpose of the TANF provisions differs significantly from that of the JOBS program. The stated purpose of JOBS was to ensure that needy families with children "obtain the education, training and employment that will help them avoid long-term welfare dependence." The purpose of the TANF is to "end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage." The 1996 welfare law imposed work conditions but did not specifically fund work programs. However, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act established a $3 billion welfare-to-work grant program for 1998–99. The president's fiscal-year 1998 budget proposed funding of $4.1 billion over five years to create or subsidize jobs.

TANF recipients are expected to participate in work activities while receiving benefits. After twenty-four months of assistance, states must require recipients to work at least part-time in order to continue to receive cash benefits. States are permitted to exempt certain groups from the work-activity requirements, including parents of very young children (up to one year) and disabled adults. The TANF law defines the "work activities" that count when determining a state's work participation rate. Table 9.4 lists the work-activity requirements by state for single parents who are at least twenty years old and nonparental caretakers.

To be counted as a work participant, a TANF recipient was required to work at least twenty hours a week in 1997 and 1998. This requirement rose to twenty-five hours in 1999 and thirty in 2000, unless the recipient has a child under six. In the first two years, the twenty required hours were to be spent in one or more of these nine high-priority activities:

• An unsubsidized job (no government help)
• A subsidized private job

• A subsidized public job
• Work experience
• On-the-job training
• Job search and job readiness (a usual maximum of six weeks)
• Community service
• Vocational educational training (a twelve-month maximum)
• Providing child care for a community service participant.

Three additional activities—work-related job skills training, work-related education, and satisfactory attendance at high school or its equivalent—became countable only if the parent or caretaker spent twenty hours in the other nine activities. Therefore, after 1998, when recipients worked five or ten hours more, they spent the hours beyond twenty in activities ten to twelve and received credit for them as a work participant. In able-bodied two-parent families, one parent must work, or the two parents can share, thirty-five hours a week, with thirty hours in one or more of the first nine activities. (See Table 9.4.)

Additional provisions apply to young parents who are under age twenty and are either household heads or married and who lack a high school diploma. They will be considered "engaged in work" if they either maintain satisfactory attendance in high school (no hours specified) or participate in education directly related to work (twenty hours a week).

Education and Training

Reflecting a "work-first" philosophy, the 1996 welfare law limits the number of TANF recipients who may get work credit through participation in education and training. No more than 30 percent of TANF families who are counted as engaged in work may consist of persons who are participating in vocational educational training. Vocational educational training is the only creditable work activity not explicitly confined to high school dropouts.

In contrast, the prior law funded, and states were required to offer, education and training. Participants in the JOBS program were allowed to count postsecondary education as a JOBS activity. In 1995 higher education activities accounted for nearly 23 percent of the monthly average of JOBS participants. Because very few education and training programs count as work activities, many groups have urged that the definition of vocational educational training be more broadly defined to include training and education for persons beyond high school. For the estimated one-third of welfare recipients with a low literacy level, the National Governors' Association in 1997 urged "greater flexibility to count basic education activities toward the work requirement." However, the proponents of putting work first believe that education and training are more valuable and meaningful after a recipient is employed. They contend that participation in JOBS education and training programs often became the end in itself rather than the intended transition to a job.

FINDING AND CREATING JOBS FOR TANF RECIPIENTS

Job availability is one of the most difficult challenges facing states in moving recipients to work from welfare. This challenge includes both the location of job opportunities and the suitability of jobs for the skill levels and past work experience of most welfare recipients. If suitable jobs cannot be found, states must create work-activity placements. The challenge of appropriate job opportunities was made easier by the economic prosperity of the 1990s. However, issues could arise as the economy contracts in a recession, causing a scarcity of jobs.

Welfare agencies have had to change their focus and train staff to function more as job developers and counselors than as caseworkers. They make an initial assessment of recipients' skills as required by the TANF law. They may then develop personal responsibility plans for recipients, identifying what is needed (training, job-placement services, support services) to move them into the workforce.

States have developed a variety of approaches to finding and creating job opportunities. Though most rely on existing unemployment offices, many states have tried other options to help recipients find work:

• Collaboration with the business community to develop strategies that provide recipients with the skills and training employers want.
• Use of several types of subsidies for employers who hire welfare recipients directly (subsidizing wages, providing tax credits to employers, subsidizing workers' compensation and unemployment compensation taxes).
• Targeting state jobs for welfare recipients.
• Financial encouragement for entrepreneurship and self-employment.
• Creation of community service positions, often within city departments, such as parks and libraries. (Recipients usually participate in this "workfare" as a condition of continuing to receive benefits rather than wages.)

These ideas are not yet fully tested, so their potential to meet the goals of welfare reform is unknown. The different approaches provide an opportunity to learn which programs succeed and which fall short. Careful state evaluation of their programs is crucial.

An In-Depth Evaluation of "Work First" Programs in Five States

In Building an Employment Focused Welfare System: Work First and Other Work-Oriented Strategies in Five States (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1999), Pamela A. Holcomb and her colleagues offered the first in-depth comparative analyses of how well states are adapting to work-oriented welfare systems. The study of five selected states showed that strategies to promote employment, supported by a strong economy, were effective in moving significant numbers of welfare recipients into jobs. The report was based on site visits in early 1997 to Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin, states that have experienced large caseload declines. These five states had begun reorganizing their welfare systems to emphasize a "work first" approach before Congress passed the 1996 welfare reform law.

Typical practices in all five states included (1) making the job search the first and major activity, (2) restricting participation in education and training, (3) imposing stricter participation and work requirements, (4) enforcing heavy penalties for noncompliance, and (5) setting time limits on assistance. Nonetheless, despite the similarities, each state had its own unique plan for welfare reform. For instance, Virginia gave recipients the greatest opportunity to combine assistance with employment but also imposed harsh penalties for noncompliance. Both Virginia and Massachusetts required work sooner than the other states and depended heavily on community-service programs to engage recipients in some form of work. Of the states studied, Oregon had developed the most successful program for creating subsidized job opportunities for welfare recipients.

However, the researchers warn that a "work first" approach by itself cannot help all welfare recipients. It works best for individuals who are already fairly employable. It is less effective in helping those with significant barriers to employment or in helping recipients stay employed. Tracking a sample of recipients over a one-year period, the study found that, by the end of the year, 31 to 44 percent of the participants were still receiving cash assistance or were back on welfare, whether they had a job or not. Holcomb, who directed the study, said, "It's a strategy that gets a lot of people off the rolls quickly, but that's not the same as keeping them off welfare or moving families out of poverty."

More recently, states have turned their attention to the needs of those with barriers to employment, including health problems, low educational and skill levels, difficulties speaking English, substance abuse, mental health problems, and victimization by domestic violence. These are people who require intensive supportive services in order to obtain employment and for whom a "work first" approach is not appropriate.

As part of its Assessing the New Federalism project, the Urban Institute initiated case studies at seventeen sites in thirteen states in 1996 and 1997 to examine the impact of welfare reform. Follow-up case studies conducted in 2000 found that nine out of the seventeen sites had begun to use an enhanced mixed model to assist those with barriers to employment, compared to only one county in 1997. This approach generally includes an in-depth assessment of barriers to employment and specialized services for hard-to-employ individuals.

SUPPORT SERVICES NECESSARY FOR MOVING RECIPIENTS TO WORK

Child Care

The offer of affordable child care is one critical element in encouraging low-income mothers to seek and keep jobs. A recent U.S. General Accounting Office report noted that "any effort to move more low-income mothers from welfare to work will need to take into account the importance of child-care subsidies to the likelihood of success." A study in Minneapolis discovered that about one-fourth of the former welfare recipients on the waiting list for child care went back on welfare when the child-care services never materialized. According to the 1998 Kids Count, an annual report produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that tracks different aspects of child well-being status from year to year, child-care expenses consume about one-fourth of the earnings of low-income families earning less than $1,200 a month.

The 1996 welfare reform law created a block grant to states for child care. The amount of the block grant was equivalent to what states received under AFDC. However, states that maintain the amount that they spent for child care under AFDC are eligible for additional matching funds. The block grant and the supplemental matching funds are referred to as the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). In addition, states were given the option of transferring some of their TANF funds to the CCDF or spending them directly on child-care services. As a result, the amount allocated for child care through the CCDF and TANF ($7.1 million in 2000) has more than tripled since 1997, when $2.1 million was allocated to the states.

Because states may use TANF funds for child care, they have more flexibility than before to design child-care programs, not only for welfare recipients but also for working-poor families who may need child-care support to continue working and stay off welfare. States determine who is eligible for child-care support, how much those parents will pay (often using a sliding fee scale), and the amount a state will reimburse providers of subsidized care.

In 2000 states provided child-care subsidies to 1.9 million low-income children, up from one million children in 1996. Approximately 70 percent of the children are cared for in child-care centers or licensed family child-care homes. The remaining 30 percent of children are cared for in more informal settings, including arrangements with friends and relatives. Despite the dramatic increase in the provision of child care to low-income families, many eligible families are still not receiving assistance.

Transportation, Access to Jobs

Transportation is another critical factor facing welfare recipients moving into a job. Recipients without a car must depend on public transportation. Yet two of three new jobs are in suburban areas, often outside the range of public transportation. Even when jobs are accessible to public transportation, many day-care centers and schools are not. Some jobs require weekend or night shift work, when public transportation schedules are limited. Even for those recipients with cars, the expense of gas and repairs can deplete earnings.

To promote employment, the vehicle asset limits under TANF are broader than under AFDC. While each state has the flexibility to determine its own vehicle asset level, all states have chosen to increase the limit for the value of the primary automobile in the family beyond that set under AFDC. In addition, twenty-eight states disregard the value of at least one vehicle in the family. The remaining states exclude from $3,959 to $12,000 of the car's value.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, states use a variety of approaches to provide transportation for TANF recipients moving into the workforce:

• Reimbursing work-related transportation expenses (automobile expenses or public transportation).
• Providing financial assistance in the form of loans or grants in order to purchase or lease an automobile.
• Filling transit service gaps, such as new routes or extended hours.
• Providing transit alternatives, such as vanpools or shuttle services.
• Offering entrepreneurial opportunities for recipients to become transportation providers.
• Transferring TANF funds to the Social Services Block Grant in order to develop the transportation infrastructure for the working poor in rural areas and inner cities.