Both the House and the Senate passed their Budget Resolutions late last week, paving the way for a joint resolution to be crafted when Congress returns from its two-week recess in early April. Both houses' resolutions would fund programs that impact women's economic security at higher levels than those proposed by President Bush.

Although the Budget Resolution is only a blueprint for the specific funding levels that will be set by Congress later this year, it serves as an important statement of Congress' overall fiscal priorities. It is heartening, then, that both the House and the Senate passed budgets that increase funding for education, job training, and social services programs. The House budget's spending level for these programs is a full $7.1 billion over the President's proposed level.

Both Budget Resolutions passed by very close margins. In the Senate, Members voted along party lines, with the exception of Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who broke Republican ranks to vote for the Democratic majority's budget. In the House, however, voting was more contentious, as various Democratic groups introduced their own budgets and 16 Democrats voted against their party's leading proposal.

In the course of passing the Senate Resolution, several amendments important to women's economic security were considered. An amendment introduced by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have added billions of dollars in additional funding for food stamps, Head Start, child care, and similar programs that help low-income families was unfortunately voted down. However, a Joe Biden (D-DE) amendment to reserve $100 million to increase funding for programs authorized by the Violence Against Women Act was included in the final Resolution.

Now that the House and Senate have each passed their versions of the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization, negotiations to reconcile differences between the two bills are proceeding at the Congressional staff level.  HEA authorizes federal student financial aid and other programs that promote college access and success for unemployed and underemployed women.

At issue in these pre-conference committee negotiations among Congressional staff are several provisions in the House, but not the Senate bill, that would make it easier for low-income working women to access post-secondary education.  Specifically the House bill would:

• Increase the federal commitment to student persistence and completion by piloting a program to attach a Student Success Grant to every Pell Grant, to ensure that students receive the services they need to stay in college;
• Make college more affordable for low-income and nontraditional students by allowing eligible students to receive the Pell Grant year-around;
• Provide Bridges from Jobs to Careers grants to colleges to increase lower-skilled workers' access to and completion of occupational credentials through bridge programs and other innovations in remedial (developmental) education;
• Direct the federal government to study the costs and benefits of making student aid available to students who attend college less than half time; and
• Simplify the financial aid application process and make it more responsive to those in modular and compressed programs of study. Modularized programs, which separate longer programs into smaller segments with credentials awarded for each segment, offer solutions for adult students, female and male, for whom pressing family and financial responsibilities make it difficult to complete a traditional full-length program.
  (Source: Center for Law and Social Policy)

Women Work! has joined several national organizations, led by the Center for Law and Social Policy, in advocating that each of these provisions be retained in the final HEA bill.