This Law was written to consolidate, coordinate, and improve employment, training, literacy, and vocational rehabilitation programs in the United States.

This legislation, also knows as the Welfare Reform Act, fosters a new vision for human assistance-welfare as short-term, emergency aid with a major focus on increasing recipient self-sufficiency. The Act also establishes a federal block grant process, requiring States to develop systems to disseminate funds.

This Act declared that the National Education Goals for the year 2000 are the following: School Readiness, School Completion, Student Achievement and Citizenship, Teacher Education and Professional Development, Mathematics and Science Achievement, Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning, Safe, Disciplined, and Alcohol, and Drug-free Schools, and Parental Participation.

The purpose of this Act is to enhance the literacy and basic skills of adults, to ensure that all adults in the United States acquire the basic skills necessary to function effectively and achieve the greatest possible opportunity in their work and in their lives, and to strengthen and coordinate adult literacy programs.

This law contains provisions on employer coverage; employee eligibility for the law's benefits; entitlement to leave, maintenance of health benefits during leave, and job restoration after leave; notice and certification of the need for FMLA leave; and, protection for employees who request or take FMLA leave.