TANF Cash Assistance Helps Families, But Program Is Not the Success Some Claim
End Notes
[1] Ways and Means Committee Republicans, “Republican Meeting on ‘Building on Welfare Reform’s Success,’” July 20, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqK0SjwI9Ag.
[2] Zachary Parolin, “Decomposing the Decline of Cash Assistance in the United States, 1993 to 2016,” Demography, Vol. 58, No. 3, June 1, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-9157471.
[3] Julia Shu-Huah Wang, “State TANF Time Limit and Work Sanction Stringencies and Long-Term Trajectories of Welfare Use, Labor Supply, and Income,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues, October 14, 2020, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10834-020-09714-8.
[4] Retro Report, “Welfare and the Politics of Poverty,” May 1, 2016, https://www.retroreport.org/video/welfare-and-the-politics-of-poverty/.
[5] LaDonna Pavetti, “Evidence Doesn’t Support Claims of Success of TANF Work Requirements,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 3, 2018, https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/evidence-doesnt-support-claims-of-success-of-tanf-work-requirements.
[6] LaDonna Pavetti, “Work Requirements Don’t Cut Poverty, Evidence Shows,” CBPP, June 7, 2016, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/work-requirements-dont-cut-poverty-evidence-shows.
[7] Danilo Trisi and Matt Saenz, “Deep Poverty Among Children Rose in TANF’s First Decade, Then Fell as Other Programs Strengthened,” CBPP, February 27, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/deep-poverty-among-children-rose-in-tanfs-first-decade-then-fell-as. 1995 to 2005 is the most suitable period for examining the effects of the 1996 law because it extends from the year before the law’s enactment until ten years later, when its major changes had mostly played out, and before significant additional changes in other low-income policies began blunting its negative impact on deep poverty. Further, 1995 and 2005 had similar overall unemployment rates and represent similar stages in the business cycle; comparing years with similar economic conditions makes it easier to see the effects of policy changes.
[8] Danilo Trisi, “Poorest Children in Single-Mother Families Got Poorer Under Welfare Reform,” August 25, 2016, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/poorest-children-in-single-mother-families-got-poorer-under-welfare-reform. Our income measure goes beyond standard Census income data in that it accounts for taxes (including refundable tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit) and benefits that are similar to cash (food assistance, housing subsidies, and home energy assistance), adjusts income for changes in family size (following the Congressional Budget Office methodology for doing so), counts unmarried but long-term partners as part of the family, and includes the best available corrections for households’ underreporting of government benefits in the Census data, using the Urban Institute’s TRIM model to make these corrections.
[9] Ali Safawi and LaDonna Pavetti, “Most Parents Leaving TANF Work, But in Low-Paying, Unstable Jobs, Recent Studies Find,” CBPP, November 19, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/most-parents-leaving-tanf-work-but-in-low-paying-unstable-jobs.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Bong Joo Lee, Kristen S. Slack, and Dan A. Lewis, “Are Welfare Sanctions Working as Intended? Welfare Receipt, Work Activity, and Material Hardship among TANF-Recipient Families,” Social Service Review, Vol. 78, No. 3, September 2004, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421918.
[12] Table 16 in Department of Health and Human Services, “Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients, Fiscal Year 2019,” November 5, 2020, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/resource/characteristics-and-financial-circumstances-of-tanf-recipients-fiscal-year-2019.
[13] Table 19 in Department of Health and Human Services.
[14] Sarah Jane Glynn, “Breadwinning Mothers Continue To Be the Norm,” Center for American Progress (CAP), May 10, 2019, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2019/05/10/469739/breadwinning-mothers-continue-u-s-norm/; Jocelyn Frye, “On the Frontlines at Work and at Home: The Disproportionate Economic Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Women of Color,” CAP, April 23, 2020, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/04/23/483846/frontlines-work-home/.
[15] Ali Safawi and Ife Floyd, “TANF Benefits Still Too Low to Help Families, Especially Black Families, Avoid Increased Hardship,” CBPP, updated October 8, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/tanf-benefits-still-too-low-to-help-families-especially-black.
[16] CBPP analysis of AFDC benefit levels data from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research.
[17] National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, “A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty,” 2019, https://doi.org/10.17226/25246; Center on the Developing Child, “The Science of Early Childhood Development (InBrief),” Harvard University, 2007, https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/.