Over the past two decades, federal and state policymakers have dramatically reshaped the nation’s system of cash welfare assistance for low-income families. Through national legislation and state-initiated reform and experimentation, policymakers transformed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which became Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 1996. During this period, state approaches to welfare reform have varied considerably. Nevertheless, almost all reform efforts have encouraged adult welfare recipients to work more and, as a result, to reduce their families’ long-term reliance on welfare benefits. In addition, many state welfare pro-grams have incorporated financial incentives that have encouraged work and supplemented the incomes of employed TANF recipients, and have also experimented with ways to help workers—employed TANF recipients and those who leave the TANF rolls with employment—retain employment and advance in the labor market. (author abstract)

In this paper, we examine how policy and structural changes states made in response to the DRA may influence the level and composition of the TANF caseload. This paper grew out of a 50-state survey Mathematica Policy Research conducted on diversion programs which revealed that states were providing cash assistance to some families with children outside of their TANF programs in order to meet the higher effective work participation rates established by the DRA (Rosenberg et al. 2008). This paper also draws on field visits Mathematica conducted to state and local welfare offices to study innovative strategies states were employing to increase the number of recipients participating in work activities (Pavetti et al. 2008). All analyses of caseload data rely on the official TANF caseload numbers published by the Administration for Children and Families. The audience for this paper includes researchers, policy makers, and program administrators who use TANF caseload data to assess the functioning of the program. The primary aim of the paper is to provide readers with background information that can improve their ability to interpret changes in the TANF caseload (or more broadly in the receipt of public cash assistance), especially during these challenging economic times and as policy makers consider the reauthorization of the program.

We start with a description of state cash assistance caseloads for families with children prior to the DRA, which provides important contextual information for understanding state responses to the DRA and their potential influence on TANF caseloads. In the second section, we describe the DRA provisions directly related to TANF. In the third section, we describe policy and structural changes made in response to the DRA and discuss their influence on state TANF caseloads. The final section offers our conclusions. (author abstract)

This resource guide was authored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, its Child Welfare Information Gateway, the FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, and the Center for the Study of Social Policy—Strengthening Families. The guide was designed to help community-based service providers better work with parents and children to prevent child abuse and neglect, and authors provide information on protective factors, how to engage the community, why child abuse and neglect occurs, and tips on strength-based approaches for working with parents and caregivers.

On March 13-14, 2012, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) convened the Promising Pathways Initiative Innovation Institute in Washington, DC. The Promising Pathways Initiative provides technical assistance to state and local TANF programs and nonprofit organizations to promote successful outcomes for low-income families, and seeks to address the knowledge needs of the TANF field through an evidence-informed practice approach. The Initiative is grounded in the research on evidence-based practices. The Promising Pathways Initiative supported ten selected sites from the ten OFA Regions by building capacity of the sites to identify practice and program components; develop and document evidence; and articulate the resulting “story” about the effectiveness of the program or practice. The Innovation Institute focused on capacity-building for evidence-informed practice through identifying and sharing innovative approaches to service delivery for TANF families and low-income populations. Nine of the ten Promising Pathways sites from Regions I through X participated in the Institute. The goals of the Institute were to: (1) Provide cross-site networking between Promising Pathways sites leading to increased capacity to implement evidence-informed practice; (2) Provide interaction and dialogue between Promising Pathways sites surrounding innovative approaches and supportive technical assistance resulting from participation in the Promising Pathways Initiative; and (3) Discuss and examine processes and tools that can be institutionalized in Promising Pathways sites to support sustainable evidence-informed programming for TANF and low-income populations.

This report uses meta-analysis, a set of statistically based techniques for combining  quantitative findings from different studies, to synthesize estimates of program effects from  random assignment evaluations of welfare-to-work programs and to explore the factors that best explain differences in the programs' performance. The analysis is based on data extracted from the published evaluation reports and from official sources.  All the programs included in the analysis targeted recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC; now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF).  The objective of the analysis is to establish the principal characteristics of welfare-to-work programs that were associated with differences in success, distinguishing between variations in the services received, differences in the characteristics of those who participated in each program, and variations in the socio-economic environment in which the programs operated. (author abstract)

This resource is also publlished as a discussion paper by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.

This report examines the effects of welfare and work policies on earnings, welfare benefits, income, stable employment, and stable welfare exits across a range of subgroups using information from random assignment studies of 26 welfare and work policies studied by MDRC. No two of the programs are alike, but they used one of five broad approaches: (1) job-search first programs required most welfare recipients to initially look for work; (2) education-first programs initially required most welfare recipients to enroll in education and training; (3) employment-focused mixed-activity programs stressed the importance of finding work but required more job-ready welfare recipients to look for work while allowing others to enroll in education or training programs; (4) education-focused mixed-activity programs likewise used a mix of initial activities but did not stress employment; and (5) earnings supplement programs provided extra financial payments to welfare recipients who went to work. (author abstract)

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 changed cash welfare from a system of income maintenance as an entitlement to low-income families to one in which assistance to families is both limited and temporary, and in which work and economic self-sufficiency are emphasized. The emerging emphasis on work has led many states to significantly narrow the exemptions from welfare-related work requirements. Under prior Federal law, states could opt to adjust the young-child work exemption from its Federally-mandated level, which exempted parents with a child under three years old, to exempt only parents with a child under one year old. In 1998, 22 states used the new flexibility granted under PRWORA to require parents to work if their youngest child was less than one year old. This report examines the state and local policies and practices that encourage and support the activities of welfare-reliant parents of infants who are required to engage in work and school activities.

Juggling work and family responsibilities is a formidable challenge for two-parent families with young children, but it is even harder for single parents, who make up the majority of the welfare caseload. Even more challenging for single parents who work is the task of caring for an infant because infant care is generally less available, more expensive, and harder to assess in terms of quality. As states seek ways to support families with infants in their transition from welfare to work, many questions emerge for researchers and policymakers alike. How successful is the welfare-to-work transition for parents of infants? What special challenges do these parents face in balancing their parenting activities with required work or school activities? What supportive services are critical to continued participation in work and school activities, and ultimately, to a successful transition from welfare to work? Is continuous, reliable, affordable, and good-quality infant care available to these parents? Have states taken the opportunity to link these families with child care that can promote the health and development of infants?

In an effort to answer these questions and, ultimately, to address the issue of providing infant care for single, working, low-income parents, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) to conduct the Study of Infant Care Under Welfare Reform. The study was designed to provide information about the strategies states and communities are using to help parents of infants make the transition to school or work while promoting the health and development of their infants, and about the policy and program challenges states and communities are facing in this effort. The information is intended both to inform policymakers about the experience of several communities and to build a foundation for future research on the effectiveness of particular programs, policies, and strategies in supporting the transition to work or school while promoting infant health and development.

The study has three phases:

A general information-gathering phase, focusing on the work-, school-, and child care-related policies and programs in 22 states that required parents of infants to work in 1998, when the study was launched.

An in-depth study phase, focusing on welfare and child care program policy and practice in eight communities, and on the experiences of welfare-reliant parents of infants in these sites.

A research design phase, focusing on the evaluation of programs, policies, and strategies designed to support parents’ transitions to work and their infants’ health and development.

This report presents the findings from the first two phases of the study, with an emphasis on the second phase. We end with a summary of research directions, which will be expanded upon in a forthcoming report. (author abstract)

Helping low-income families in rural areas find gainful employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency is an ongoing policy concern. The Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies demonstration is using rigorous experimental designs to build knowledge about how to help low-income families in rural areas strive toward sustained employment and self-sufficiency. This report examines an employment-focused case management initiative deployed in southern Illinois. Despite a lack of impacts on employment, earnings, and self-sufficiency, the findings imply a need for stronger interventions in rural areas and demonstrate the challenges inherent in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs in these types of settings.(author abstract)

Almost half of TANF cases are "child-only" in which no adult is included in the benefit calculation. In about 4 out of 10 these cases, the children live with relatives or nonrelatives instead of their parents. The other 6 in 10 cases include parents not eligible for benefits because they receive federal disability payments, are sanctioned for failure to comply with some TANF regulation, exceeded their time limit, or they are undocumented immigrants. This brief reviews the available research on child-only cases, including how cases arise, their characteristics, the children's well-being, and implications for policy and research. (author abstract)