Source: CBPP analysis of Department of Health and Human Services 2020 TANF financial data TANF Cash Assistance Eligibility and Benefits Note: TANF = Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. In 2020, 15 states spent 10 percent or less of their TANF funds on basic assistance. Also, states have often diverted TANF funding from providing basic assistance to families with the lowest incomes to providing services to families with incomes well above the poverty line. Some of these funds have been used to fund programs and services, such as child care, that encourage and support employment among low-income families, while a significant portion (and in some states the majority) of funds are used neither to meet families’ ongoing basic needs nor to support work. After adjusting for inflation, the amount states are required to spend (at the 80 percent level) in 2020 is about half of the amount they spent on AFDC-related programs in 1994.īecause TANF’s four purposes are so broad, states have been able to shift funds that were previously used to provide basic cash assistance toward many other uses. (This requirement is reduced to 75 percent for states that meet the Work Participation Rate, which most states do see below for details.) In 2020, states spent roughly $15 billion in MOE funds. The amount states must spend is set at 80 percent of their 1994 contribution to AFDC-related programs. State allotments were determined in 1996 based on historical spending and have not changed to account for demographic changes or population growth.Īs noted above, states must spend state funds on programs that achieve one of TANF’s four purposes in order to receive their full federal TANF block grant allocation. Federal funding for the TANF block grant has been set at $16.5 billion each year since 1996 as a result, its real value has fallen by 40 percent due to inflation. The federal TANF block grant and state MOE contributions are the primary sources of funding for state TANF programs. ![]() However, these policies do not exclusively harm Black families: all families facing a crisis or struggling to pay for their basic needs are harmed when they cannot access the support they need. These policies have created a weak cash safety net that disproportionately leaves Black families without cash assistance. More than a century of false and harmful narratives - such as Black women are unfit mothers - and paternalistic policies that sought to control Black women’s reproductive behavior and compel their labor have led to many aspects of TANF’s current design. is steeped in a legacy of racist ideas and policies. States define what constitutes a “needy” family for the first and second purposes and do not have to limit assistance to needy families for the third and fourth purposes.Ĭash assistance policy in the U.S. States can use federal TANF and state MOE dollars to meet any of the four purposes set out in the 1996 law: (1) assisting families in need so children can be cared for in their own homes or the homes of relatives (2) reducing the dependency of parents in need by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage (3) preventing pregnancies among unmarried persons and (4) encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. TANF’s funding structure differs greatly from AFDC, where the federal government contributed at least $1 in matching funds for every dollar that states spent. In order to receive federal funds and avoid a fiscal penalty, states must also spend some of their own dollars, known as “maintenance of effort” (MOE) spending. The programs go by different names in states, for example, CalWORKS in California. ![]() Under TANF, the federal government provides a fixed block grant to states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. Income supports help families in poverty maintain stability and promote children’s healthy development, a large and growing body of research finds. Congress created the TANF block grant through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, as part of a federal effort to “end welfare as we know it.” TANF replaced AFDC, which had provided income support in the form of cash assistance to families with children in poverty since 1935.
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