Expansion of education as welfare work requirement proposed

The Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony March 14 on a bill that would expand eligibility for using education to satisfy work requirements in order to qualify for certain public benefits.

Currently, the Welfare Reform Act allows participants younger than 24 to pursue a high school diploma or General Educational Development Test (GED) and remain in compliance with the Aid to Dependent Children Program’s (ADC) work requirements.

LB240, introduced by Scottsbluff Sen. John Harms, would remove the age restriction.

Harms said the change would allow ADC participants over the age of 24 to access educational opportunities that will move them out of poverty and toward economic self-sufficiency.

“Education is the only key to long-term stability for both the parents and the children,” Harms said. “Without that there is no hope.”

Beatty Brasch, executive director of the Center for People in Need, testified in support of the bill. Calling poverty a “tremendous problem” in Nebraska, she said removal of the age restriction would allow more low-income individuals to overcome their lack of educational achievement.

“That small change would help real people that I see every day at the Center who are caught in the web of poverty,” Brasch said.

No one testified in opposition to the bill and the committee took no immediate action on it.