The Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) inaugural data strategy provides a north star to ensure that data delivers for the people ACF serves. ACF recognizes that better data capacity internally and throughout the human services ecosystem can lead to improved operations, more informed policy, and faster, more proactive, and safer delivery of public benefits and services. This ACF resource explains the data strategy, which builds on their existing progress to better use, share, and analyze data at ACF. The strategy includes a dozen individual initiatives that fall into four categories: sustaining initiatives; one-stop shop initiatives; delivery initiatives; and technology initiatives. These categories include building foundational infrastructure such as hiring ACF’s first ever Chief Data Officer and establishing a Data Governance Council; supporting program offices by creating a Data Talent Center to provide expertise in hiring and retaining data talent; and sharing data regularly through community-centered data tools and stories.

These Office for Family Assistance resources provide demographic data on adults and children in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families active families receiving cash assistance and closed cases. National and state-level data are available, as well as data on families receiving assistance through Separate State Program (SSP)-Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) programs.

The National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics (NAWRS) is launching their first affinity group: the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Huddle. The huddle brings together TANF data experts with the aims of (1) building a network of TANF data professionals across the country, (2) providing a forum for TANF data professionals to raise and discuss emergent issues in the TANF data space, and (3) exchanging findings, innovations, and approaches to analyzing and leveraging TANF data in policy making and practice. The TANF Data Huddle is open to researchers, practitioners, and data enthusiasts at the federal, state, county, and local levels. It will meet October 16, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. CT and November 20, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. CT. For interested parties, send your name, email, and professional affiliation to the NAWRS Secretary at secretary@nawrs.org.

The Office of Family Assistance released a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for states seeking information on implementing the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work outcome measure provisions in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The FAQ resource is designed to respond to questions that the Office of Family Assistance has received that are not answered in existing resources and/or where language in the technical resource required additional clarification.

This Chapin Hall brief describes results from a series of longitudinal analyses using federal TANF administrative data from 28 states. The brief examines patterns and trends in TANF participation, focusing on caseload dynamics, household characteristics, and state-level differences. These analyses are preliminary and were conducted to demonstrate how federal TANF data can be used for longitudinal research that offers important insights into TANF participation over time. This study sheds light on important trends in TANF participation, emphasizing the importance of longitudinal data and the need for ongoing research to better support families in need.

The National Association of State Workforce Agencies is hosting a three-webinar series that targets frontline workers responsible for collecting data directly from customers. Participants may interact with individual claimants, jobseekers and employers through the Unemployment Insurance programs, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programs, or other workforce development programs and services. Participants will emerge better understanding:
• The critical role of data in data-based decision-making
• Typically available datasets and reports
• How to apply available datasets and reports

Sessions include:
1. Data Quality: The Foundation for Trustworthy Decision will take place on July 2, 2024 from 2:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. ET.
2. Decoding Data: Understanding the Reports You Use will take place on July 16, 2024 from 2:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. ET.
3. Data-Driven Service: Using Reports to Enhance Customer Interactions will take place on July 30, 2024 from 2:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. ET.

This MDRC toolkit provides guidance, drawn from learning and experience, on how to use data to inform program improvements. It collects concrete strategies and practitioner-tested tools designed to advance these efforts. These materials were developed in pilot projects with local Temporary Assistance for Needy Families agencies as part of the TANF Data Collaborative (TDC).

It is organized according to the five phases of completing a data analytics project used in the TDC’s framework:

1. Laying the Groundwork
2. Accessing the Data
3. Preparing the Data
4. Analyzing the Data
5. Communicating the Results

The TANF Data Collaborative (TDC) Pilot, an initiative that is part of the TANF Data Innovation project, was designed to expand TANF agencies’ use of TANF administrative and employment data to better improve program services and outcomes for families with low incomes. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation resource showcases some of the tools and resources used to facilitate the “learning by doing” approach of the TDC pilot. The materials in this toolkit offer concrete strategies and practitioner-tested tools designed to inform program improvements using administrative data and to advance these efforts sustainably into the future.

Evaluations of employment and training programs often use state unemployment insurance (UI) wage records to measure effects on participants’ employment and earnings. However, UI wage records have some constraints, including:

• Missing earnings from certain types of work, such as self-employment, informal “off-the-books” jobs, and employment with the federal government; and
• Not capturing out-of-state work. This MDRC brief examines the implications of relying only on in-state UI wage records to evaluate programs that are designed to increase employment and earnings.

This brief builds on the work of National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies, an assessment of a series of programs that were implemented and evaluated in the 1990s, by presenting differences between the National and Oregon-only data sets in employment rate impacts annually through Year 20. It also presents year-by-year differences in earnings impacts, comparing Oregon-only earnings data with data from a broader group of states.