FESS-- Press Room -- FAQ

Overview
State Projects
Six Strategies
Press Room
Resources
Policy
FAQ

Home
Contact
Search
Events
Find a State
Join Email Lists

You are here: Press Room > FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions About the Six Strategies for Self-Sufficiency

What are the Six Strategies for Self-Sufficiency?
For many families, especially those moving from welfare to work, self-sufficiency cannot be achieved in a single step. It requires strategies that create ladders out of poverty-strategies that provide the assistance, guidance and time needed for families to become self-sufficient. Recognizing this, Wider Opportunities for Women promotes Six Strategies for Self-Sufficiency:

Why the Six Strategies?

Because women as of 1999 earn 72¢ for every dollar men earn.
Because 60% of all minimum wage workers are women.
Because most welfare recipients leaving the rolls for work earn very low wages.
Because nearly one in three American households possesses zero or negative assets.

These realities demonstrate the critical need for strategies that will help families move out of poverty and into lasting economic security. The Six Strategies are tools for individuals, community-based organizations, and state- and local-level policymakers to use to truly help low-income families move out of poverty and achieve long-term economic stability and independence.

In today's policy environment—in which welfare and workforce legislation have devolved power to states and localities—new and effective strategies are urgently needed to aid low-income people. The 1996 welfare legislation ended the 60-year-old federal program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and replaced it with a new state level, time-limited program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 substantially alters the federally funded system of job training and other employment-related services. These two policy changes make it more important than ever for states and localities to have innovative tools to move families out of poverty.