House Passes Sweeping Welfare Reform

The welfare bill passed 229-197 on a largely party-line vote, with 14 Democrats and four Republicans breaking with their parties. It is the first major change to the welfare program since it underwent a significant overhaul in 1996.

The House proposal requires most welfare recipients to work three days a week in regular jobs or government-created positions. The other two days could be spent in training, drug treatment and other programs.

The bill maintains the ban on aid to legal immigrants for the first five years they are in the U.S. and the five-year lifetime limit on benefits, whether people are working or not.

Another stipulation requires that states have 70 percent of welfare recipients working 40 hours a week by 2007.

Democrats complained that the GOP provisions would force states to create make-work jobs simply to fill quotas, and that states will lose the ability to create individual plans for each welfare recipient.

Earlier Thursday, the House rejected a Democratic version of a welfare reform in a 222-198 vote.

In the Democrats’ bill, billions were provided for childcare programs, restoring benefits for legal immigrants — which were cut in the 1996 overhaul — and would have allowed states greater flexibility to put welfare mothers in education and training programs.

Since the passage of the 1996 landmark bill, the number of welfare recipients has been cut in half, but some experts say many of those now off welfare do not earn enough to escape poverty.