The Office of Family Assistance published data tables which show TANF and Separate State Programs-Maintenance of Effort (SSP-MOE) caseloads separately as well as combined by state and at the national level from October 2020 through June 2021. The tables are cross-tabbed to include total numbers of recipients, adult recipients, child recipients, families, one-parent families, two-parent families, no parent families, and monthly caseload data.

The Office of Family Assistance has released tables that provide demographic data on the age, gender, and race/ethnicity of adults and children in TANF, Separate State Program-Maintenance-of-Effort active families, and closed cases, as well as data on the financial circumstances of TANF cash assistance recipients for Federal fiscal year 2020. The data is presented for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this concurrent workshop, researchers from the TANF Data Collaborative (TDC) team identified key components to sustaining data analytic capacity in government agency environments, provided examples of activities and practices that fall within each sustainability component, and elicited audience participation to source additional strategies and examples of sustainable practices. The research is based on work with eight pilot states across the country and the results of a comprehensive TANF Data Needs Assessment.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this concurrent workshop, presenters from the TANF Data Collaborative (TDC) provided key insights from the toolkit developed for TANF administrators about the realities of accessing, linking, and analyzing wage records to inform policy and programming. Solutions for common data access barriers and an overview of key methods for linking TANF data with other datasets were also discussed with the goal of equipping participants with actionable strategies to facilitate data integration.

The Office of Family Assistance has made available preliminary FY 2020 TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) expenditures and transfer data. The data is available in tables and an interactive map, as well as national and state pie charts. Data is broken down by category of activity, including basic assistance; work, education, and training activities; and child care (including funds that states transferred to the Child Care and Development Discretionary Fund).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this concurrent workshop, representatives of the TANF Data Collaborative overviewed three pilot projects showcasing their experiences. California examined wage progression for TANF participants who have left the program. New York organized its data into cohorts and spells, which is valuable in providing information about the duration of TANF receipt, reentry, and basic outcomes, and Utah created an analytic file to examine characteristics that predict a cohort of “leavers” returning to TANF.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) non-assistance funds flow through workforce boards, employment program providers, and community partners—but data about service delivery often lives in separate systems. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified this as a core program integrity challenge: without cross-agency data infrastructure, TANF agencies struggle to assess provider performance, identify service gaps, and connect spending to participant outcomes.

As a result, the Office of Family Assistance’s State and Tribal Technical Assistance and Resources (STAR) team developed the TANF Program Integrity Office Hours as a series of topical peer learning sessions where TANF agencies can share what's working, explore real challenges, and walk away with practical strategies they can use to address the challenge identified by GAO.

This recording includes key takeaways from the July session, highlights from peer discussions, and an overview of how to use and navigate the companion resource, which can help TANF programs assess and strengthen their own provider contracts and accountability structures.

This Office of Family Assistance brief focuses specifically on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) child-only cases in which a child receives assistance while a parent is excluded from the assistance unit because of citizenship or immigration status. The brief examines how common these cases are among broader TANF child-only cases and brings greater attention to a part of TANF that can be easy to overlook.

For TANF practitioners, this resource provides useful context for understanding the families behind child-only cases and the different circumstances that can shape eligibility. It can help TANF staff understand the impact of child-only cases involving a parent excluded because of immigration status and how they impact program caseloads, spending, and reporting.

A digital service may look efficient from an agency’s perspective while being confusing or frustrating for the people expected to use it. This guide from GovLoop explains the importance of understanding people’s experiences before redesigning or upgrading digital services. It introduces customer journey mapping and human-centered design as tools agencies can use to identify where people encounter problems and create services that are easier to navigate.

For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, this approach can be useful when thinking about online applications, eligibility processes, appointment systems, document submission, and other digital interactions with families. Instead of assuming that a difficult process is simply a user problem, practitioners can examine the process from the client’s perspective and identify where confusion, unnecessary steps, or unclear instructions create barriers. The guide can help TANF leaders and staff ask practical questions about what families experience at each stage of accessing services and use that information to make improvements. Its emphasis on listening to users makes it a useful resource for agencies working to make digital services more accessible.

Finding out which public benefits a family may qualify for can be difficult when eligibility rules differ across programs and applications require time, information, and paperwork. This Urban Institute resource evaluates the initial implementation of MyFriendBen, a free online screening tool that helps people quickly identify benefits and community resources for which they may qualify. The evaluation found that the tool helped many users discover programs they did not know about, and most users who applied for a new benefit or resource were approved for at least one program. At the same time, the research shows that screening is only the first step; many people still needed help understanding application requirements and completing the process.

For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, this resource offers practical lessons for improving benefits access. A digital screener can help families see the full range of supports that may be available rather than approaching each program separately. It can also help staff identify where technology can reduce information barriers while highlighting where personal assistance is still needed. TANF agencies can use the findings to think about how screening tools might connect families to navigators, community organizations, and application assistance.