Welfare-to-Work (WtW) Grants

The Department of Labor (the Department) hereby issues a Final Rule implementing the Welfare-to-Work (WtW) grant provisions of Title IV, Part A of the Social Security Act. This action completes the rulemaking initiated by the publication of the Interim Final Rule (IFR1) on November 18, 1997. The Final Rule revises the IFR1 to reflect public comment, where appropriate. In addition, many matters of concern raised by commenters have been the subject of legislative changes to the WtW statute. Changes have been made to reflect new statutory requirements for these matters. Final Rule revisions to IFR1 are discussed in detail in Section II of this preamble. In addition, the Department hereby issues a new Interim Final Rule (IFR2) implementing the Welfare-to-Work and Child Support Amendments of 1999 (1999 Amendments) which Congress passed on November 29, 1999 with the Administration's support. The 1999 Amendments, among other things, significantly changed the eligibility criteria for the Welfare-to-Work program. In IFR2, we have made the regulatory changes required by the 1999 Amendments. These changes are discussed in Section III of this preamble. The Department requests public comment only on these new provisions and changes. So that all new changes to the WtW regulations are contained in one place, we are publishing the Final Rule and IFR2 in one package.