EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation was one of the demonstration projects made possible by Section 1115 waivers to the rules in effect at the time for the AFDC program. These Section 1115 waivers allowed states to test new approaches to advance the objectives of the AFDC program.
Participants in EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation were exempt from the 24-month time limit of receiving cash assistance in any five-year period because the Navajo reservations had an unemployment rate of greater than 50 percent, as defined by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation included several other policy changes: (1) a family’s monthly cash assistance no longer increased with the birth of additional children; (2) unwed minor parents were required to live with responsible adults; (3) teen parents were required to participate in Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS); (4) a family’s benefits were automatically sanctioned for a minimum of one month for the first occurrence of noncompliance with JOBS; (5) transitional child care and medical benefits were available for 12 to 24 months after a family left AFDC for employment; (6) the 100-hour rule, which made two-parent families ineligible for cash assistance when the primary wage earner worked more than 100 hours per month, was cancelled; and (7) the program created individual development accounts, in which participants could deposit money from AFDC and food stamps for training or education and not have it counted as income.
All AFDC recipients who were residents on a Navajo reservation were subject to the policy changes of EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation, except recipients who were disabled or incapacitated, recipients who were domestic violence victims, recipients who were caregivers for a household member who was disabled or incapacitated, and recipients who were living on a Native American reservation with an unemployment rate at or above 50 percent. EMPOWER was a statewide welfare reform policy implemented in Arizona in 1995, and EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation was specific to residents on the Navajo reservations.
EMPOWER—Navajo Reservation made several welfare reforms, including time-limit exemptions to participants’ cash assistance, extensions to child care and medical assistance, and mandatory job-training participation for teen parents, to encourage Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients to find work and become self-sufficient.