The federal government is rewarding the state of Iowa with more than one- million dollars for the state’s success in cutting the number of people on welfare. State House Republican Leader Christopher Rants says Iowa ranked among the top states in the U-S for taking people off government assistance.Representative Rants, of Sioux City, says the Department of Human Services says just under 21-thousand families are on welfare — that’s a reduction of more than fifty percent since 1993. Iowa’s Family Investment Program was initiated that year. It required people to sign a state contract agreeing to get job training and meet other goals in exchange for getting welfare checks. Rants says the F-I-P was very controversial — and very needed.For 1998, Rants says Iowa ranked 9th in the U-S for welfare recipients’ success in the workforce.