As states make decisions about how to allocate the rest of their recovery funds, they should make investments that center racial and economic equity to support the people and communities hardest hit by the pandemic and help ensure a widespread and equitable recovery.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was billed by its supporters as an effort to improve cash assistance recipients’ employment opportunities. Instead, it laid the foundation for states to perpetuate racist ideas that have dominated cash assistance programs since their inception.

Housing should remain a priority as states consider using the remainder of their Fiscal Recovery Funds.

Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty in every state.  Without Social Security, 22.1 million more Americans would be poor.

The Child Tax Credit, especially when received monthly, has an important role to play in addressing the income volatility that many families face.

President Biden’s 2023 budget calls for a range of policies that would boost opportunity and reduce poverty, improve health and well-being, and advance widely shared prosperity.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, created in 1996, provides temporary financial assistance to few families below the poverty line — including those with no other means...

Understanding which policies states have implemented can help federal policymakers update those program rules.

President Biden’s 2023 budget calls for a range of policies that would boost opportunity and reduce poverty, improve health and well-being, and advance widely shared prosperity, funded by proposals to make the nation’s tax system stronger and fairer.

The temporary pandemic unemployment programs significantly increased the coverage, duration, and adequacy of unemployment benefits compared to regular UI, substantially reducing hardship and providing important stabilization and impetus for recovery for a sharply declining economy.

Policymakers in at least 14 states are using temporary budget surpluses to call for costly and permanent tax cuts targeted more to wealthy people and profitable corporations than to those who need...

The COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn prompted widespread expectations of severe declines in health insurance coverage, as people lost their jobs and saw their incomes plunge. But the federal government swiftly enacted relief legislation and took other policy actions that stabilized health insurance coverage, increased affordability, and mitigated adverse impacts on health care access and equity during the public health emergency.

Once the federal government ends the PHE, which is expected to happen no sooner than mid-July, states will resume their regular processes and begin reviewing all enrollees’ eligibility. The risk of mass coverage loss is high — experts estimated in recent months that over 15 million people will lose their coverage at the end of the PHE, and that number is likely higher today.