Summary: TANF is affecting the Vietnamese community by decreasing the availability of welfare resources to Vietnamese refugees, immigrants, and non-citizens. In addition, TANF's “work-first” requirements deny many Vietnamese, on welfare, the opportunity to seek education, including ESL, which might otherwise allow Vietnamese of low-economic status to free themselves of their poverty.
Quick facts: According to the 1990 Census:
• 34% of Vietnamese Americans live in poverty.
• Only 18% (compared to the American average of 26%) of Vietnamese Americans are in managerial or professional fields.
• 65% of Vietnamese “Do not speak English well.”
Background:
As a part of our government's efforts to reform the welfare system, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program was initiated in 1996. The program was intended to provide cash assistance and job training to families in poverty. However, TANF barred legal immigrants from receiving TANF benefits. Though TANF resources were allowable to refugees and asylees, refugee use of TANF has dropped from 43% to 9%.
Included in the welfare reform were “work-first” requirements, stipulating that TANF recipients must work at least 30 hours per week. HR 4, passed by the House of Representatives, would increase the work hours to 40 hours/week. Because of time constrains, this has discouraged immigrants, receiving welfare, from seeking higher education and ESL training. As a result, many Vietnamese remain in poverty, even after leaving welfare, as they cannot find work in higher income occupations that require such education.
TANF has also had a negative effect on families trapped below the poverty level. According to the Parent Leadership Committee on TANF, only 40-50% of parents who complete “work-first” programs find jobs and earn wages of only $6.50/hour. A year later, 40-50% are again unemployed and back on welfare.
Negative effects on the Vietnamese American Community:
The problem of TANF is in its unfair impact on the welfare system, which does not take into consideration specific obstacles and barriers to financial betterment, endemic to Vietnamese immigrants and the Vietnamese community.
Barriers to Employment Affecting Vietnamese Americans in Poverty:
- Language
The 1990 U.S. census reported that 65% of Vietnamese Americans “Do not speak English well.” In many instances, low English proficiency creates an unconquerable barrier for Vietnamese Americans in securing and maintaining employment. Adding to the problem of language is TANF's “work-first” requirements which discourage Vietnamese Americans from seeking ESL training crucial to their economic betterment.
- Mental Health
Due to traumatic stress, torture, abuse, and war related incidents experienced in their country of origin, many Vietnamese Americans find it difficult to acquire and sustain work as a result of depression, flashbacks of torture, and/or post traumatic stress.
- Issues of Family and Child Rearing
Due to traditional family values and a tendency among Vietnamese Americans to have misgivings about placing their children in the care of anyone outside the home, many Vietnamese American parents stay at home because of child rearing responsibilities. There is also the problem of childcare availability. For instance, in Alameda County , CA , Vietnamese parents have been unable to access child care services, because the county did not hire a childcare specialist who spoke Vietnamese until the fall of 2000 – two years into the implementation of welfare reform.
It is also not uncommon for an elderly parent to live with the family. This elderly parent often requires constant care and makes it impossible for the family member caring for him or her to seek employment.
- Transportation
The welfare system does not provide transportation services that meet the needs of poor Vietnamese American families. As a result many Vietnamese Americans cannot find work because they lacked reliable transportation.
Recommendations: In order to improve our welfare system, NAVASA recommends the following measures in regards to the reauthorization of TANF:
• Consider higher education and training a valid welfare to work activity.
• Count English as a second language as a welfare to work activity.
• Count child-rearing responsibilities as an allowable welfare to work activity.
• Provide mental health, drug, and alcohol counseling and recovery services.
• Provide adequate transportation services.
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