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 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) annual block grant dedicates $16.5 billion in federal funds for states to support families with financial need, for instance through monthly cash assistance and through nonrecurrent short term benefits (NRSTs). While ongoing cash assistance comes with several restrictions, including work requirements, NRSTs have more flexibility, both in terms of who is eligible and what actions are required of recipients. Research has shown that cash payments can have strong positive outcomes for parents and children, including improved health, reduced child abuse and neglect, better education and work opportunities, and increased food, housing, and financial security. This Urban Institute summary provides an overview of key facts and considerations related to using TANF funds to support certain types of cash transfers to families with low incomes.

States have broad flexibility over the use of state and federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds, and many have used that flexibility to divert funds away from income support for families and toward other state budget areas often unrelated to TANF’s goals. In 2021, states spent only about a fifth of the funds on basic assistance to meet essential needs of families with children; yet research shows that investments in cash assistance can improve academic, health, and economic outcomes for children in families in poverty. This Center on Budget and Policy Priorities resource consists of fact sheets for every state, detailing how each spends its TANF funds.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance hosted the Regions IX and X State Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Technical Assistance Meeting from August 29 to August 30, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. This meeting was designed to amplify programs’ wisdom in the room by fostering peer-to-peer learning and collaborative planning that will help jurisdictions innovate solutions that improve outcomes for families.

Recent research has explored the delivery of human services programs in rural contexts, identifying promising models for service delivery and highlighting remaining needs. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation research brief uses data from the National Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) to further examine human services delivery in rural areas. The brief explores variation in participant characteristics between programs in rural and non-rural areas; implementation strategies and challenges for programs operating in rural areas; and differences in impacts on participant outcomes between participants in rural and non-rural programs. The discussion of implementation strategies and challenges for programs highlights some service delivery challenges reported by both rural and non-rural program staff, but specifically focuses on strategies that rural program staff use to mitigate those challenges.

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.

Social safety net programs can help low-income people afford necessities like food, health care, and utilities. However, many older Americans do not receive assistance from the government programs they are eligible for. Understanding where these gaps in eligibility and participation exist is an important step in reaching older adults and providing them with the resources to improve their economic security. This Urban Institute paper reviews information on US households from the American Community Survey to estimate how many people ages 65 and over are eligible for each of three programs that provide essential support to older adults: the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Medicare Savings Program (MSP).

Aligned Customer-Centered Ecosystem of Supports & Services (ACCESS) is a two-year initiative, led by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, that aims to create a roadmap for aligning modernization efforts from agencies across the health, human services, and labor ecosystem in service of promoting truly customer-centered improvements to program design and delivery. This APHSA brief unpacks how core components of program and service design and delivery, funding models, and technical infrastructure impact systems’ ability to operate in alignment.