Last Updated: July 2023 

When Congress created the TANF block grant in 1996, it created the TANF Contingency Fund for states to draw upon during periods of economic distress. This fund was intended to address some of the risks and hardships states would face as a result of the conversion of the former AFDC program — an entitlement whose funding rose automatically in recessions — to a block grant with a fixed federal funding level. However, over time it has simply become an additional source of funding for states that apply and meet the requirements. As of 2023, the Contingency Fund is funded at $608 million per year.  

In order to be eligible to apply for Contingency Funds, States must meet a special 100 percent MOE requirements. The 100 percent MOE calculation excludes any MOE funds spent in Separate State Programs (SSP) and on child care. Additionally, states must meet a “needy state trigger” – which every state meets and has met for many years. Lastly, to keep all the funds, states must show that they have spent state funds that are equal to the 100 percent MOE plus an additional amount equal to the amount of Contingency funds they received.   

States are eligible to request funds up to 20 percent of the federal block grant allotment, and the payments are calculated and reported as monthly allotments. That means that the monthly payments are equal to 1/12 of 20 percent of the state’s block grant amount. HHS makes payments until the allocated funds are all expended, and this usually occurs by March of every fiscal year. Even if the federal allocation to the Contingency Fund remains the same, the total amount of funds a state receives will vary from year to year because it is dependent on the number of states that request funds.   

Key Resources: 

Redesigning the TANF Contingency Fund to Make it More Effective | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org): This CBPP report primarily focuses on the flaws within the Contingency Fund and provides recommendations for changes, but the Appendix provides a detailed description of how the fund works and what states need to do to qualify.  

CFR Part 264 Subpart B — What Are the Requirements for the Contingency Fund?: This is the section of the statute that outlines the requirements for the Contingency Fund.  

TANF Contingency Fund Final Awards, 2006-2021: This spreadsheet tracks the amount of Contingency Funds awarded to each state from 2006 to 2021. Awards after 2021 can be found in Table E.5 in the HHS Expenditure Data Spreadsheet which can be found at this link. 

Finally, you can find the 100% MOE amount in Table C.3 in the HHS Expenditure Data Spreadsheet linked above. 

The income Security team at CBPP has produced five papers that document TANF’s racist roots and provide policy options to move TANF in an anti-racist direction.

This overview report documents TANF’s racist history and provides a vision for an anti-racist cash assistance program using the Black Women’s Best framework. TANF Policies Reflect Racist Legacy of Cash Assistance | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

This report focuses on policy changes that need to be made to move TANF in an anti-racist direction. Cash Assistance Should Promote Equity | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

This report focuses on why increasing cash benefits is important for moving TANF in an ant-racist direction. Improvements in TANF Cash Benefits Needed to Undo the Legacy of Historical Racism | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

This report documents how TANF’s work requirements grew out of racist ideas and documents how states can use the flexibility they have to move TANF work programs in an anti-racist direction. States Have Flexibility to Move TANF Work Programs in an Antiracist Direction | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

This report documents the racist roots of TANF’s behavioral requirements and reproductive control measures. It provides policy recommendations for ending those requirements. Ending Behavioral Requirements and Reproductive Control Measures Would Move TANF in an Antiracist Direction | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

Additional CBPP resources:

Blog: Celebrate Black History Month by Making Policy Changes That Help Black Women Thrive | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

Infographic: Reimagining TANF to Center Black Families (cbpp.org)

Last Updated: July 2023 

The Welfare Rules Database (WRD) is a longitudinal database that tracks state TANF policies. The WRD was created in 1997 by the Urban Institute’s Assessing the New Federalism (ANF) project, and it is currently funded by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) (both of which are part of the Department of Health and Human Services). Although most of the WRD’s information is currently only updated for 2020, it remains to be the most comprehensive resource currently available for tracking and comparing state-level TANF policies.  

The WRD, as outlined by the top bar on the website, is primarily split into four components: Custom Search, Welfare Rules Databook, Policy Tables, and Policy Maps. Advocates may find Policy Tables and Custom Search to be the most convenient tools out of the four due to their relative flexibility and navigability.  

Policy Tables: 

The Policy Tables section contains a list of tables organized by policy topic. Some examples of policy topics include asset limits for recipients, family cap policies, vehicle exemptions for recipients, among others. To access a table, the user can click on one of the years listed under the heading. The links will redirect to the user to a publicly shared online Excel sheet containing data from that given year. Each spreadsheet lays out the policies present in each state as it relates to the given policy topic. 

The policy tables are most convenient for accessing state policy information on a specific topic. However, policy tables are not necessarily constructed for each topic—other variables could be potentially found through Custom Search (explained below). 

Custom Search: 

Policy topics that do not appear in the Policy Tables section could potentially be found through Custom Search. Custom Search allows the user to generate a custom table according to the user’s designations. In Custom Search, users first must select a given policy category (e.g. activities exemptions, child support, time limits, income eligibility tests, and many more) from a drop-down menu before selecting one or more variables listed within that category. Users can also customize which states or years they would like the generated table to display.  

However, the long list of categories, in addition to the confusing variable names, make it somewhat difficult to navigate Custom Search. Utilizing the Data Dictionary linked on the page is the best starting point, as it allows the user to search for categories and variables by word or phrase. 

Welfare Rules Databook: 

The Welfare Rules Databook is a document that records state TANF policies as of July of every year, and is available in two versions—without text and with text.  

The “without text” version is essentially a consolidated form of Policy Tables. It is a large spreadsheet document that contains every policy table from that given year, with a table of contents as the first sheet. 

The “with text” version is an approximately 300-to-350-page report split into two sections. The first section contains introductory information outlining eligibility requirements, benefits, and activity requirements. The second section, similar to the “without text” version, is simply the complete list of policy tables laid out consecutively. 

Although the Welfare Rules Databook is an in-depth document, accessing the Policy Tables directly would be the more practical option most of the time—there are not any additional tables available in the Welfare Rules Databook that is not available through the Policy Tables section of the website.  

The Appendix Tables contain information that can be useful. For example, in the 2020 version, there is a list of policy changes between 2019 and 2020.  

Policy Maps: 

The Policy Maps section contains links that redirect the user to published reports by the Urban Institute. Those reports provide graphical overviews of state TANF policies every year, which include various graphs and visual diagrams. For example, the report contains a bar chart that ranked states based on their maximum monthly TANF benefits, as well as a color-coded map that represents different state policies surrounding sanctions for non-compliance with work requirements. These reports are useful for gaining a basic overview of different state TANF policies. 

Other Helpful Links: 

The User’s Guide on the website provides additional guidance around navigating the Data Dictionary and Custom Search (which it refers to as “Query the Database”, but please note that such a title is simply an outdated name for Custom Search). The Coding Manual provides additional information on the design of the database and the different types of tables available. 

Finally, advocates can reach out to CBPP staff for further guidance on navigating and utilizing the WRD effectively.  

Last updated: July 2023 

In the United States, young children are more likely to be poor than any other age group. Poverty during the “first year of life” is a particularly strong indicator of risk—after all, children who are born into families experiencing poverty are far more likely than other children to spend more than half of their childhood in poverty. A large body of research has also shown that infancy is a particularly critical period for children’s development, with implications for lifelong physical and emotional well-being. However, states have rarely used TANF funds to provide targeted support for TANF families with young children. For fiscal year 2021, about 8.9 percent of families receiving TANF assistance included a child under age one.  

One strategy to advocate for expanded access to TANF is to emphasize the importance of income support within the “first year of life” of a child or infant in need. Potential policy changes include:  (1) extending TANF eligibility to pregnant people with no other children; (2) waiving or modifying work requirements for children under 12 months; and (3) providing extra payments for TANF parents or non-TANF parents with low incomes at the birth of a child to help cover the additional expenses associated with meeting the needs of an infant.  

(States can exclude parents with children under 12 months once in a lifetime from their work participation rate calculation so states may not need to be concerned about waiving or modifying work requirements. States can provide non-recurrent short-term payments to parents at the birth of a child for up to four months without triggering time limits, work requirements or child support cooperation and assignment requirements.) 

Key Resources: 

TANF and the First Year of Life: Making a Difference at a Pivotal Moment | CLASP: This piece by CLASP outlines the overall importance of family income support during pregnancy and the first year of life, as well as the policy levers within TANF to provide such support. Some policies proposed within the brief include waiving or modifying work requirements for pregnant people, as well as eliminating family caps. While it’s worth noting that the brief itself was written in 2015, an updated version of its appendix tables (which record state policies) is available. 

Rx Kids Program in Flint, Michigan: This short report outlines the Rx Kids program, which is the first citywide cash allowance program implemented in Flint, Michigan. The program is funded by the state TANF block grant as well as other foundation grants. Advocates can utilize the example of Rx Kids as a model to push for similar programs locally in their states. 

Experiences of Poverty Around the Time of a Birth: A Research Note: This study by Columbia University’s  Center on Poverty and Social Policy utilized data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Supplemental Poverty Measure to analyze the poverty rates of mothers 6 months before and after childbirth, comparing across racial and ethnic groups. The researchers found that poverty rates among mothers increase after childbirth, and that existing government programs did not protect mothers from falling into poverty after childbirth. These findings lend support to expanding federal programs such as TANF to better support mothers in the first year of life.  

Case-for-federal-birth-grant-CPSP-2023.docx (squarespace.com): This brief, also from Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, models the potential impact of a federal birth grant— “benefits or payments to parents of newborns to assist with parental and newborn expenses.” The study also modeled the impact of a federal birth grant in combination with an expanded monthly child tax credit. The researchers ultimately predicted that those policies could significantly reduce poverty rates among infants and families in their first year post childbirth. Although those policies were not specific to TANF, targeted TANF cash assistance could likely yield similar results. 

ChildTrends – Cash Transfers Support Infant and Toddler Development: This brief by ChildTrends outlines the ways in which cash transfers can significantly help families meet the basic physical and mental needs of young infants and toddlers. Although this brief primarily focuses on cash transfers made through the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, the same effects could be achieved through TANF cash assistance. 

Implications of Paid Family Leave for Welfare Participants on JSTOR: This study examined a cohort of “new-mother” recipients of TANF in Wisconsin that received cash assistance that substituted for paid family leave benefits. The author ultimately found that “new-mother” recipients of income assistance would be better off with cash assistance than paid family leave benefits, and that a substantial minority used their cash assistance as a short-term resource during their maternity leave. 

Last Updated: July 2023 

Diaper need—the gap between sufficient diapers to keep a child dry and what their caregiver can provide—affects more than 5 million children in the United States. One in three families struggle to provide enough diapers to change their child frequently enough, and families with marginalized identities or backgrounds are disproportionately affected. Lack of sufficient diapers can lead to health consequences, such as diaper rash, severe dermatitis, infections, and hospitalization. Diapers, which cost nearly $100 per month per child, can be a serious burden for parents with low earnings and those who are out of work or unable to work. Expanding TANF assistance would better support families in need to afford basic necessities like diapers.  

Advocates can also push for their states to specifically provide diaper benefits to TANF recipients—in 2017, California’s legislature passed a $30 per child monthly diaper benefit for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants, and in 2021, four states provided budget funding directly to diaper banks. Last legislative session, Washington passed SB 5838 to authorize additional payments for diapers and other child-related necessities to TANF families with children under three. DC and Michigan’s FY 2023 budgets also appropriated funds to create a diaper bank program and diaper assistance programs respectively.  

Key Resources: 

CBPP – End Diaper Need and Period Poverty: Families Need Cash Assistance to Meet Basic Needs: This CBPP fact sheet provides basic information on diaper need; ways in which current government programs fall short; and different policy levers (which include expanding TANF cash assistance) to help families afford diapers.  

Diaper Distribution Programs: Overview of Programs and Available Research | The Administration for Children and Families (hhs.gov): This literature review completed by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (part of the Administration for Children and Families) provides a foundational overview of diaper distribution programs. This included analyzing different program models for diaper distribution programs and their positive outcomes for caregivers and their children.  

Diaper Dilemma: Low-Income Families Face High Costs and Limited Supplies of an Essential Good – INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY: This short policy brief outlines the negative impacts of diaper scarcity and the ways in which current federal programs, such as TANF, are currently insufficient in filling the need. The brief also argues that current diaper banks are not enough as a solution and proposes additional policy solutions—such as increasing safety net program funds and making diapers non-taxable. 

Last Updated: July 2023 

Material hardship increases the risk for child welfare involvement due to neglect and abuse. Providing income support to families in need, like assistance provided through the TANF, reduces the risk for child maltreatment and the child welfare system involvement that results from it. This is crucial to ameliorating racial disparities, as families of color continue to experience disproportionate harm at the intersection of TANF and the child welfare system. Given the strong link between cash assistance and child well-being, advocates should urge states to increase TANF income support payments and provide them to more families struggling to meet their basic needs. 

Key Resources: 

This TANF and Child Welfare Brief provides a short summary of the importance of income support provided by TANF for reducing involvement in child welfare. The slide deck described below provides a much more in-depth analysis of the importance of concrete supports for reducing involvement in the child welfare system.  

Chapin Hall policy experts collaborated with The American Public Human Services Association to create the “Evidence to Impact” policy tool. This resource was designed to help interested parties learn about peer-reviewed research and policy options to increase access to supports that positively impact child and family well-being. It includes a section on TANF, but also other policies that provide cash to families.

Family and Child Well-being System: Economic & Concrete Supports as a Core Component: This 171-page slide deck is published by Chapin Hall, a policy research center at the University of Chicago. It synthesizes a large body of research to provide an in-depth overview of economic insecurity, child welfare involvement, and the historical contexts to those topics. It also provides a deep dive into evidence around the positive impacts of economic and concrete supports on child welfare involvement and overall mental health well-being. Here is an alternative link to download the slide deck if the one above displays an error, and more information about the project can be found here. 

Research Reinforces: Providing Cash to Families in Poverty Reduces Risk of Family Involvement in Child Welfare: This short CBPP report was created in response to Chapin Hall’s research linked above. It outlines the overall benefits of cash to child well-being, explaining how increasing TANF cash assistance could be used to reduce the risk of child welfare involvement. 

Economic Supports – Casey Family Programs: This issue brief begins with an explanation of the ways in which current child protection system is “not effective at distinguishing between intentional harm… and harm resulting from a lack of access to adequate food, housing, and other material resources.” While it acknowledges that child protection agencies cannot alleviate poverty, they can help initiate community-driven strategies. The rest of the brief goes on to outline various forms of economic supports that could be used to improve the health, safety, and wellbeing of families, thereby preventing child maltreatment. 

Last Updated: July 2023 

Family cap policies deny additional assistance to families who have another child while receiving TANF benefits. They are based on faulty and racist assumptions that mothers have more children to qualify for more public assistance; research has shown that caps have no effect on birth rates among families who are TANF participants. Moreover, family cap laws deny critical assistance to families who already have to stretch meager TANF benefits— which are at or below 60 percent of the poverty line in every state— to cover the expenses for an infant. Nationwide, family cap policies have blocked aid to hundreds of thousands of children. Appealing family cap laws is for ensuring that low-income families with young children receive the assistance that they need.  

Key Resources:  

CBPP’s Blog Post on Repealing Family Caps: This blog post outlines the history of family cap legislation in recent decades, as well as how family caps extend the legacy of reproductive control and punishment of Black women in cash assistance programs. The article also includes a graphic that display of states that still have family caps in place. Note: if the data seems dated, please ask CBPP staff for updated information.  

If/When/How’s Talking Points Memo on Family Caps: This document outlines a series of talking points on the ineffectiveness and the harmful effects of family cap policies, through the lens of poverty, reproductive justice, and others. There is also an extensive list of potential state-specific talking points that state advocates could select from to suit their state’s needs.  

Berkeley’s Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice’s Report: This report provides an overview of the faulty stereotypes and theory behind family caps, as well as an analysis of how family caps influence (or don’t influence) childbearing and poverty. It also includes case studies of 12 states’ advocacy efforts surrounding family caps, with a particularly in-depth analysis on California.  

The Welfare Rules Database (urban.org), Table IV.B.1 provides 50 state + DC information on family cap policies.  

Date: July 2023 

Most states limit the amount of assets that either applicant or recipient families can hold and still be eligible for TANF. Low asset limits can restrict access to cash assistance and make it harder for families to save for emergencies or long-term goals. This disproportionately affects groups that are the most likely to be marginalized—Black people and other people of color, especially women, are less likely to have savings and other assets that they can use as a buffer when a crisis (e.g. job loss or illness) strikes. Increasing or eliminating the asset limit can be a strategy to improve access to TANF cash assistance. The impact of asset limits on TANF caseloads and spending in the aggregate have been negligible, suggesting that states have little to lose by lifting or removing them. 

Key Resources:  

CLASP’s Brief on the Importance of Eliminating Asset Limits: This brief by CLASP provides an overview on the benefits of eliminating asset limits in both TANF and SNAP. It includes a table of asset limit policies by state, but the data is from 2018. Updated data can be accessed through the Welfare Rules Database (WRD). Tables I.C.1 and IV.A.3 provide 50 state and DC information on asset limits for applicants and recipients, respectively. If the information from WRD is also outdated, please feel free to contact CBPP staff for updated data.

Examples from Illinois: In 2013, Illinois eliminated the TANF asset limit. The Heartland Alliance has published the fact sheet, FAQ, and responses to opposition document that they used to successfully advocate for this policy.  These pieces also include data (though IL specific) about the number of people denied due to asset limits and potential state savings. 

Do Limits on Family Assets Affect Participation in, Costs of TANF?: This 2016 issue brief from Pew details what states may be able to expect when raising or eliminating asset limits. Pew found that states that raised or eliminated asset limits saw no statistically significant increase in TANF recipients or monthly applicants. They also found that raising the asset limit can modestly reduce states’ administrative costs. 

Last Updated: July 2023 

The word “welfare” is not race-neutral. It is a dog whistle that cues up racial stereotypes — primarily, that Black Americans lack a work ethic, are undeserving, and make up the lion’s share of public assistance recipients. Public opinion research shows that a small shift in language may boost public support for anti-poverty programs—most Americans approve of “assistance to the poor” but oppose that spending if it is labeled as “welfare,” according to the 2019 General Social Survey. Race-neutral and alternative language is available; for example, advocates can say “economic security programs” or “basic needs programs” or “cash assistance” that help(s) people who are struggling to make ends meet and support their children. Avoiding “welfare” may make language less concise, but it would prevent advocates from perpetuating racial stereotypes.   

Key Resources: 

CBPP Memo on Replacing Welfare with More Race-Neutral Alternatives: This memo outlines themes within public opinion research that demonstrate the racialization of “welfare”—this includes a graph displaying the disparities in public support for “welfare” versus “assistance to the poor.” The memo also describes media and political rhetoric that contributes to anti-welfare sentiments. Finally, there is a table that proposes alternative language options to terms that utilize the word “welfare.” 

Gilens, Race Coding and White Opposition to Welfare: This study utilizes survey modelling techniques to assess the extent to which white Americans’ attitudes toward “welfare” is rooted in their attitudes towards Black Americans. Gilens ultimately found that racial attitudes were the single most important influence on white Americans’ views on “welfare”. These research findings help provide background information on the racial coding of “welfare”. 

Wetts and Willer, Privilege on Perceived Racial Status: This study aimed to test the theory that perceived threats to relative advantage to racial status hierarchy causes their whites to oppose “welfare” programs. The authors utilized American National Election Studies data and survey-embedded experiments, and their results ultimately aligned with the theory. 

Last Updated: July 2023 

Every family should have access to monthly cash assistance to meet their basic needs, regardless of past behavior or criminal record. The drug felony ban is rooted in the racist “war on drugs” and disproportionately harms Black and other people of color, who are overly policed and incarcerated. LGBTQ people and people with disabilities are also overrepresented in the criminal legal system. Advocates should aim to fully lift the ban if they can, or fight for a more lenient partially lifted ban if the former is not feasible. For example, Massachusetts’s partial ban is very narrowly construed so that few people are likely subject to a ban at all and those that are only are banned for a year. Crafting a partial ban that is similarly narrow may be a way forward if fully lifting the ban is not viable.   

Key Resources:  

No More Double Punishment: This brief from CLASP discusses the history and recent trends concerning both the TANF and SNAP drug felony bans, as well as situating the bans in the broader criminal justice policy landscape. This brief is updated every year to reflect changes in state policy. 

Remaining States Should Lift Racist TANF Drug Felony Bans; Congress Should Lift It Nationwide: This CBPP blog discusses the racist nature of the drug felony ban and calls for both state and federal action. It is not regularly updated like the CLASP brief. 

A Lifetime of Punishment: This 2013 report from The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice organization, provides history and data analysis, with a focus on the ban’s disparate impact on women and children of color. While the analysis of criminal justice statistics is over a decade old, it may still prove useful. 

State Data from the Welfare Rules Database (WRD): To find information on the drug felony ban, you will need to do a custom search. Select “Eligibility of Individual Family Members” in Policy Category and “ei_drgfl” under variables. Note that the 4^th column in the table (EI_DRGFL) is a yes/no variable that answers whether people with drug felony convictions are eligible for TANF. The WRD provides the best source of current data for all 50 states, but the data can be as much as three years old. Please feel free to contact CBPP staff to see if we have more current data, especially on states that have recently modified or lifted their bans. 

In recent years, Illinois, Mississippi, and Virginia each fully lifted the drug felony ban in TANF. Advocates in these states have kindly provided us with examples of tools they used to help persuade lawmakers to undo this harmful policy. You can find the links to these files in the right panel, listed under additional files.