We are a group of diverse organizations including service providers, legal service advocates, faith, anti-poverty and anti-hunger groups, children’s advocacy organizations and community action agencies. Our primary mission is to advocate for responsible, compassionate, and cost-effective government policies.
Because of the many faith traditions' commitment to those living in poverty, the faith community was instrumental in organizing CLIP in 1998 to provide due diligence for low income people as Pennsylvania began to implement the 1996 federal welfare law described below.
Federal Welfare Reform Hit a New Milestone in 2021
The year marks the 25th anniversary of welfare reform and the creation of TANF. On August 16, the Meet the Need Coalition, of which CLIP is a member, published a new report "Meet the Need: No Child Should Live in Deep Poverty" marking the anniversary.
The report gives a history of TANF, including recent history related to COVID-19, and outlines reasons the program does not provide stable support for families needing to escape poverty. It offers ways to improve TANF including increasing the cash grant, improving work and training programs, allowing more exceptions from the child support requirement, allowing families to save more and creating a smooth transition to work.
Here is the report in its entirety.
