Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Proudly Representing Maryland's 7th District

Opening the Doors to Real Economic Opportunity

January 6, 2004

Remarks at Howard County Board of Social Services Annual Legislators' Breakfast
Columbia, Maryland

Good morning. Thank you, Ms. [Melody] Higgins, for your kind words of introduction.

Join me, everyone, in showing Melody Higgins, Laurie Collins, Michael McPherson, Marius O’Donnell & Robert Sutliff how much we appreciate our Board of Social Services and all they are doing to uplift the lives of our neighbors.

I am honored to join my colleague and friend in the House, Congressman Ben Cardin, our leader here in Howard County, County Executive Jim Robey, and all of our other colleagues in government for this very important breakfast.

We are here to applaud Director Sam Marshall and his wonderful staff for their determination to do more for the people we all serve.

Our Department of Social Services is doing more for more people, even though frozen and unfilled positions make achieving those objectives more difficult than ever. And I especially want to commend Howard County DSS and our Howard County Community College for the employment training partnership that is putting our people back to work - despite these difficult economic times.

CONCERNS
I must tell you that I am very concerned about the 26 positions that Howard County DSS has been unable to fill since October of 2001 - that’s almost a 25% reduction in staff during a period when our neighbors need more help.

And I am especially concerned about the lack of adequate funding for child care assistance. I have been informed that some working families have been on a waiting list for child care help for far too long.

Americans want to work and support their families, ladies and gentlemen. The evidence of their desire to work is overwhelming - both nationally and here in Howard County.

Each year, I sponsor a job fair for people who are out of work - and for the others who want to find a better job. Most of the job-seekers arrive early. And, when I speak with them, their message to President Bush and the Congress is clear.

When we open doors to real economic opportunity, people will do whatever they can to walk through them.

Unemployed Americans want to work. What they need is the practical help that will allow them to obtain good jobs that pay enough to lift their families out of poverty.

I voted against welfare reform in 1996 because the legislation did not include a realistic federal commitment to the job training, child care and other supports that working parents need. I believe that those same practical considerations must remain at the center of our debate about encouraging employment in today’s high-technology economy.

Consider the young woman whom I will call “Sarah.”

Sarah is a mother in her mid-twenties who brought her three little children with her to our job fair last year. She told me that no other trusted adult was available to look after them while she searched for a job.

Sarah desperately wants to give her children a better life, but the demands of motherhood constantly interfere with her efforts to obtain her G.E.D. and the other job skills that would qualify her for a job that pays a living wage.

Barely able to pay her rent and her rapidly increasing utilities bills, she cannot afford the child care and transportation costs that would allow her to go to work every day.

“I am trying to work and support my children,” Sarah explained to me, “but it seems as if the system is working against me.”

Like other low-income Americans, Sarah wants to create a career for herself - and not simply to move from one low-paying job to another.

To accomplish that goal, Sarah and other unemployed parents need additional education and job training, affordable and safe child care, transportation and job-search assistance.

They also need a Congress - and a General Assembly in Annapolis - that understand the economic realities that working parents face.

During the good economic years under former President Clinton, additional federal funding for job training, child care costs and transportation assistance allowed states like Maryland to help most of their former welfare recipients find jobs. As a result, the number of children with an unemployed parent declined nationally from 4.3 million in 1995 to 2.9 million in 2000.

Now, after three years of the Bush Administration and its policies, unemployment is back up.

Many of these unemployed parents find it almost impossible to qualify for high-paying positions that require significant technical training - and they still cannot support their families on a minimum wage.

Ben Cardin and I want to give parents like Sarah the opportunity to work. We are convinced that the central objective of welfare reform must be to eliminate poverty in America.

To achieve that goal, we must expand federal support for proven employment strategies like job training and child care programs while we continue to give the states flexibility in using that increased federal aid.

We can create the true “welfare reform” that America needs, my friends.

So, I challenge our colleagues in state and local government - just as Ben Cardin and I challenge ourselves and our colleagues in the House.

• Let’s do everything within our power to return the staffing levels at our Social Services departments back to where they should be.
• And let’s make certain that no American is prevented from working and supporting their family because they cannot find affordable child care.

It’s the right thing to do. And it’s the smart thing for us to do economically.

Thank you for inviting me today.

I look forward to working with you for the benefit of all of the families we serve.