Measuring Employment Outcomes in TANF

In accordance with federal interests, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation funded a report on the challenges of and potential solutions for measuring TANF employment outcomes. Creating national standards would be a significant challenge due to the flexible nature of TANF funding; states have implemented many different programs within diverse local contexts and with unique eligibility criteria. Instead, federal agencies could help individual states design metrics to assess their employment outcomes, connect program leaders across states, and allow states to demonstrate their own processes as a learning tool for others. Understanding the breadth of programmatic diversity and range of potential state-specific solutions may allow for the most effective evaluation of TANF employment outcomes.