Over the summer, the Biden administration announced a pilot project to test new approaches to measure the effectiveness of the federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Just after the election, it was announced that California, Maine, Kentucky, Minnesota and Ohio would participate in the pilot.
This week, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) pulled the plug on this experiment, at least in its current form and with its current participants.
“We believe the prior administration should not have proceeded with the pilots in the period between the election and the inauguration and should have left that decision for this administration,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison, in a letter sent to the five states.
TANF was incepted out of the 1996 welfare reform negotiations that ended the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Unlike its predecessor, TANF tied welfare payments to work requirements: states are on the hook to demonstrate that 50% of all families and 90% of two-parent families receiving assistance are working or are engaged in workforce preparation and training activities.
It is important to note that because states can also use TANF to fund programs and not just welfare payments, the amount of money going directly to families through the $17 billion block grant has plummeted. Several states use a large chunk of their TANF allocation to pay for child welfare services, for example.
The gauge of TANF compliance for states has always been myopically focused on one metric: work participation rate. This pilot project, which was funded as part of the 2023 deal that lifted the national debt ceiling, was conceived to determine if “work and well-being outcomes rather than the work participation rate leads to stronger employment outcomes and increased family stability and well-being.”
Gradison informed the five states that they’d be allowed to use their proposed alternative plans in fiscal 2025, but after that must return to standard reporting on TANF.
“We have reviewed the legislation, the solicitation for applications, the criteria and performance measures that were identified and the projects that were selected, and unfortunately, they do not reflect this administration’s goals and priorities, particularly related to views on work, performance measures and indicators of family stability and well-being,” Gradison said, in his letter.
ACF does intend to conduct the pilot project with different rules and guidelines aimed at “promoting work and reducing dependency,” and expects to issue a new request for proposal this spring.