RESEARCH ON "TANF" GROUP

Research on "TANF" Group

Research on "TANF" Group

Introduction

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF is a block grant that was created by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and it was a part of a federal effort to “end welfare as we know it” (Friedman, 2006, p.3). The purpose of the TANF program is to provide temporary assistance for the care of dependent children in their own homes or the homes of relatives by providing financial, medical and self-sufficiency services (Gariepy, 2005).

Role of Federal Government

Under TANF, the federal government provides block grants to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. Under TANF, states decide how much aid to provide to a needy family. The federal block grant for TANF is based on each state's peak level of federal expenditures for AFDC and related programs; for most states this was 1994 level (Gariepy, 2005). No federal guidelines exist for determining eligibility and no requirement asks that states help all needy families. Though TANF does not require states to have a need standard or a gross income limit, as did AFDC, many states have based their programs in part on their earlier practices (Gariepy, 2005). The maximum benefit is the amount paid to a family with no countable income. Federal law specifies what income counts toward figuring benefits and what income is to be disregarded by the state. The maximum benefit is paid only to those families that comply with TANF's work requirement (Gariepy, 2005).

Even though TANF is called a block grant program, it actually combines seven different grants, and each grant has limited maximums. These grants are state-family assistance grant, bonuses to reward decreases in illegitimacy, supplemental grants for population increases in certain states, bonuses to reward high-performance states, welfare to work formula grants, welfare to work competitive grants, and contingency--fund matching grants (Gariepy, 2005).

State family assistance grant is $16.5 billion grant based on historic state welfare expenditures (Gariepy, 2005). Bonuses to reward decreases in illegitimacy include $20 million grant to each of the five states with the largest reduction in out of wedlock birthrates combined with a decline in abortion rates (Gariepy, 2005). Supplemental grants for population increases in certain states are formula grants to states with above-average population growth and below-average federal spending per poor person in AFDC and related programs (Gariepy, 2005). Bonuses to reward high performance in states are bonus funds for states meeting the goals of the TANF program (Gariepy, 2005). Welfare to work formula grants are matching grants to states to fund welfare to work programs which target long term welfare recipients (Gariepy, 2005). Welfare to work competitive grants are grants awarded to private industry councils and cities or counties with welfare to work projects (Gariepy, 2005). Contingency are fund matching grants to states that experience high unemployment rates or increased food stamps caseloads (Gariepy, 2005).

The main goal of TANF is to move the recipients from receiving welfare benefits to working and being self-sufficient (Hawkins, ...