Research from SmartAsset explores what it takes financially for one parent to stay home and the other to support the household. It adds context to the tradeoffs families face when making caregiving and work decisions. Within Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) services, it can support more realistic financial planning discussions and help families think through how income choices affect stability, caregiving roles, and long-term goals.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator estimates the income families need to cover basic expenses based on where they live and family size. It helps clarify a common disconnect in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work—employment alone does not always equal economic stability. Practitioners can use it to ground conversations about self-sufficiency in local reality, making it easier to connect job planning and financial goals to actual household needs and improve family stability.

A resource from the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network highlights how agencies are prioritizing placement with relatives or trusted caregivers when children cannot remain with their parents. These approaches help maintain family connections, reduce disruptions, and support more stable caregiving arrangements.

TANF programs can support this work by reinforcing care in the home or with relatives, including efforts that help stabilize caregiving arrangements, reduce placement changes, and support caregivers in meeting the day-to-day needs of children. This may also include coordinating with partner systems and aligning services to strengthen family-based care and promote continuity.

This America Succeeds report highlights the workplace value of durable skills: communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership. TANF programs can integrate these into their case management or training to help participants build foundational and transferable skills for long-term career growth.

This tipsheet suggests ways TANF leaders can use technology to support program participation and participants’ employment outcomes. By investing in technology solutions, TANF agencies may efficiently deliver services that promote participant self-sufficiency and reduce dependence on government benefits. Technology options discussed in this resource include: 

• Virtual service delivery platforms, including digital service hubs, virtual case management tools, and online learning platforms
• Virtual platforms providing access to data and analytics
• Tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) 

This resource also discusses factors for TANF leaders to consider when evaluating potential technology solutions.

In this 2021–2026 Strategic Plan for Adult Education and Literacy, the Texas Workforce Commission outlines the guiding principles and vision for adult education and literacy over the five years with a focus on the Texas workforce customer’s experience.

In FY2022, states spent more than 44 percent of federal TANF and state funds on non-assistance services, including work, education, and training activities; childcare; and child welfare services. Questions have arisen about how states use and account for TANF funds, and as a result the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review TANF non-assistance spending. This GAO report, part of a series of reports reviewing TANF, examines how the seven selected states have used TANF non-assistance funds, non-assistance data collected and used by selected states, and any data challenges faced by selected states and the extent to which the Department of Health and Human Services provides support to address these challenges.

The crisis of marriage and family formation involves both economic and complex social factors. Children raised in non-intact families face numerous disadvantages, including higher poverty rates, poorer educational outcomes, and increased exposure to violence and substance abuse as compared to their peers with intact families. This Institute for Family Studies report focuses on family dynamics in Texas, identifies barriers to marriage and family formation, and proposes a pro-family policy agenda for the state.

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs aim to support the well-being of families. For such programs to be effective, it is critical that clients attend regularly, yet studies have found that HMRE program providers sometimes struggle to maintain high rates of participation. Identifying and exploring typical participation patterns in HMRE programming can increase understanding of this challenge and point to ways in which programs can promote and support regular participation. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes typical patterns of participation in three programs that were part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation, a large multisite evaluation conducted from 2015 to 2022 to identify strategies for improving the delivery and effectiveness of healthy marriage and relationship education programs. The brief identifies distinct patterns of participation in each of these programs and provides profiles of the clients who participate in these distinct ways.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation digital report shares highlights from the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation, a large multisite evaluation conducted from 2015 to 2022 to identify strategies for improving the delivery and effectiveness of healthy marriage and relationship education programs. This report describes the five grantees —in Georgia, Florida, Denver, Missouri, and Texas— and the services they provided. To capture the perspectives and experiences of the people most directly affected by the programs, this report also tells the personal stories of some of the program staff and participants who contributed to STREAMS.