# Presentation: 918709

## TANF Interim Final Rule:Focus on Work and Accountability

**TANF Interim Final Rule:****Focus on Work and Accountability**

**Wednesday, June 28, 2006**

## Welfare Reform Accomplishments

- Welfare rolls have declined by 57 percent, down from 4.41 million in August 1996 to 1.89 million families
- Fewer families on welfare than at any time since 1969
- 63.1 percent of never married single mothers are employed, up from 49.3 percent in 1996
- Child poverty rates have declined from 20.5 percent in 1996 to 17.8 percent in 2004, with 1.4 million fewer children in poverty

## The Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005

- Re-establishes a meaningful State work participation rate
- Requires HHS to define each work category more precisely
- Adds additional categories of individuals into the State work participation calculation
- Establishes new work verification plan requirements

## TANF FamiliesFiscal Years 1996 - 2005

**TANF Families****Fiscal Years 1996 - 2005**

## Effect of the Caseload Reduction CreditFY 1997 – 2004 and FY 2007

**Effect of the Caseload Reduction Credit****FY 1997 – 2004 and FY 2007**

## TANF Families Required to Participate in Work Activities in FY 2004

**TANF Families Required to**** Participate in Work Activities in FY 2004**

- (Hours reported for the prior month)

## DRA Re-establishes Meaningful StateWork Participation Rate Requirements

- Maintains 50 percent work participation rate requirement for States
- Caseload reduction credit:
- Updates base year for calculation of caseload reduction credit from   FY 1995 to FY 2005
- No change in the individual work participation requirement

## TANF Statutory Work Activities

- Core activities (count toward first 20 hours)
- Unsubsidized employment
- Subsidized private employment
- Subsidized public employment
- Work experience
- On-the-job training
- Job search/job readiness assistance(6 weeks per year)
- Community service
- Vocational educational training (12 months lifetime)
- Providing child care for an individual in community service

- Non-core activities (do not count toward the first 20 hours)
- Job skills training directly related to employment
- Education directly related to employment
- Attendance at secondary school/GED program

## HHS Regulations:Defining Work Activities

- In interim final rule, HHS uses common-sense definitions for all work categories
- For example:
- _Employment:_ full- or part-time paid work
- _Work experience:_ limited to “working off the grant” (performing work for an employer, e.g., as a file clerk, in exchange for the TANF grant)
- _Job search/job readiness assistance:_ seeking or preparing for employment which could include short-term substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, or rehabilitation activities
- _Community service:_ structured work programs for the direct benefit of the community via public or nonprofit organizations
- _Vocational educational training:_ limited to education directly related to employment that does not require a bachelor’s or advanced degree, but which could include remedial and basic education in a work context

## HHS Regulations: Tighten Focus on Work

- Count only actual hours of participation and limited scheduled hours for non-paid work activities
- Education and training must be directly related to a specific job
- Count substance abuse, mental health, and rehabilitation activities for 6 weeks per year under “job readiness” activities
- Permit States to count recipients as meeting the core work activity requirement when they work the maximum number of hours under the minimum wage requirement of the Fair Labor Standards Act but their hours worked fall short of the minimum number of hours required by TANF

## HHS Regulations:Adds Additional Categories of Individuals into the State Work Participation Requirement

- Statute requires including families in separate State programs _IF_ State claims these expenditures against their Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirement
- Includes certain child-only cases:
- When parents are sanctioned
- When parents reach time-limits
- At State option, when a parent who receives Supplemental Security Income (SSI) works or participates in the Ticket to Work program
- Excludes other child-only cases:
- Grandparents and other non-parental caretakers
- Undocumented immigrants and immigrants under five year ban
- Parents receiving SSI not included under State option

## HHS Regulations: Tighten State Accountability

- All activities used to satisfy work requirements must be supervised
- Require a Work Verification Plan to validate work data by September 30th of this year
- Begin to penalize for verification failures starting October 1, 2007
- Use single State audits and Federal reviews to ensure States adhere to verification plans
- Implement new DRA penalties for non-compliance with work verification plan (a 1 to 5 percent reduction in a State’s TANF grant for each year out of compliance)

## DRA: Marriage and Fatherhood

- $100 million per year for healthy marriage demonstration grants:
- Marriage education
- Marriage skills training
- Public advertising campaigns
- High school education on the value of marriage
- Marriage mentoring programs
- Up to $50 million per year for activities promoting fatherhood:
- Counseling
- Mentoring
- Marriage education
- Enhancing relationship and parenting skills
- Activities to foster economic stability

## DRA: Child Care and TANF Combined Funding

- Since FY 1996, Federal child care funding has more than doubled
- from $2.2 billion in FY 1996 to $4.8 billion in FY 2005
- The Deficit Reduction Act increases Federal child care funding from $4.8 billion to $5 billion, effective FY 2006
- Since 1996, Federal and State AFDC/TANF and child care funding has more than doubled
- from $6,934 per family to $15,561 per family