In this and future tax filing seasons, states can help certain current and former Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants meet their basic needs by electing what’s known as the “tax offset option.” That is, states can elect to give families who are owed child support any support that the IRS deducts from a non-custodial parent’s tax refund due to past-due child support.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s oldest program for providing cash assistance to families with very low income, is instead laden with undignified, coercive requirements designed to exclude people due to past conduct rather than current need, and in some cases even to control their reproductive decisions.

Families use assistance provided by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to pay for rent, utilities, diapers, food, transportation, and other necessities. Yet too few families struggling to make ends meet can access the program, and TANF’s history of racism means that it disproportionately fails to reach families in states where Black children are likelier to live.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant is designed to provide temporary cash assistance to families in poverty — primarily those with no other means to meet basic needs — but its reach has shrunk considerably over time.

As it did in 2021, Mississippi is considering a deep cut in its personal income tax — a first step toward some policymakers’ goal of complete elimination — in a misguided attempt at boosting...

Federal rental assistance enables over 5 million low-income households to afford modest homes. Three major programs — Housing Choice Vouchers, Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, and Public Housing — assist about 90 percent of households receiving federal rental assistance.

Build Back Better includes funds for about 300,000 new housing vouchers, a particularly urgent measure right now because vouchers could quickly reduce the cost of housing for renters who receive them, at a time when rents are surging in much of the country.

Hardship in 2020 and 2021 would have been far worse without extraordinary steps taken by the federal government, states, and localities to respond to the pandemic and its economic fallout.

Congress should ensure that provisions to help people improve their employment opportunities and increase their earnings potential are included in a compromise Build Back Better (BBB) package.

The appropriations bills for fiscal year 2022 approved by the House Appropriations Committee would make crucial investments that are particularly important to communities of color.

The current appropriations debate should be viewed in the context of the significant austerity imposed on regular appropriations by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this timely and important topic. My name is Ann Oliva; I am the Vice President for Housing Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The...

Congress should put the IRS on a path to a much needed, and long overdue, rebuild after years of crippling funding cuts.

As policymakers pursue compromise on a Build Back Better bill, they should craft legislation that, even if smaller, still makes significant progress toward more broadly shared prosperity in which more families can make ends meet and access health care, more children have what they need for healthy development and school success, and more workers can upgrade their skills to match the needs of today’s economy.

Adequate cash assistance is essential to help families maintain stability and to support children’s healthy development, especially when families with low incomes experience a job loss or other crisis. Yet since the early 20th century, cash assistance programs have provided very low benefits.

The increases the House was able to provide for low-income programs highlight the importance of reaching agreement on a robust topline for non-defense funding in coming negotiations.

Federal rental assistance helps struggling seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and working families keep a roof over their heads, often by helping them afford rental units they find in the private market. Ten million people in over 5 million low-income households receive federal rental assistance.

For decades, wealthy interests, large corporations, and their allies in state capitols have pushed tax cuts that haven’t yielded the promised economic benefits but instead have undermined state...

States continue to use their considerable flexibility under TANF to divert funds away from income support for families and toward other, often unrelated, state budget areas. By redirecting the funds back toward cash assistance, however, states could promote racial equity and child well-being.

States have broad flexibility over the use of state and federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds. Many have used that flexibility to divert funds away from income support for...

States continue to use their considerable flexibility under TANF to divert funds away from income support for families and toward other, often unrelated state budget areas. By redirecting the funds back toward cash assistance, however, states could promote racial equity and child well-being.

What Are Project-Based Vouchers? Most Housing Choice Vouchers are “tenant-based,” meaning people can use them to rent any private apartment that meets program guidelines....

The Biden Administration, which is currently re-examining Georgia’s waiver, should stop the state from leaving the federal marketplace by revoking federal approval to implement this harmful change.