GAO/HEHS-00-133R Questions on TANF Sanctions

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

Health, Education, and

Human Services Division

B-285654

June 14, 2000

The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Finance

United States Senate

Subject: Additional Information about the Scope and Limits of Sanction Data

Provided in Recent GAO Report on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

Dear Senator Moynihan:

This letter is in response to your request for additional information about the scope

and limits of data on sanctions provided in GAO’s report, Welfare Reform: State

Sanction Policies and Number of Families Affected (GAO/HEHS-00-44), issued March

31, 2000. In the TANF program, states must impose sanctions when adults do not

comply with work or child support responsibilities.1

States may choose to impose

partial or full-family sanctions. Partial sanctions reduce cash benefits by less than

100 percent; for full-family sanctions, the entire cash benefit is terminated and cases

are usually closed.2

Based on monthly data we received from the states, we determined that, in an

average month during 1998, just over 23,000 TANF families nationwide had their

benefits terminated as a result of full-family sanctions.3

To provide an indication of

the extent of sanction activity, in general, the report also combines the number of

families receiving a full-family sanction and the number of families under partial

sanction in an average month in 1998. This letter responds to the following questions

you raised concerning the number of full-family sanctions in an average month, and

the figure we report combining full-family and partial sanctions.

1

States may also choose to impose sanctions for noncompliance with other program responsibilities.

2

Full-family sanctions resulted in case closures in 45 of the 48 states that provided data on full-family

sanctions for the report. Therefore, in 45 states, cases that received a full family sanction were no

longer counted as part of the TANF caseload. In the 3 remaining states, cases that received a fullfamily sanction continued to be counted as part of the caseload, although they received no cash

benefits.

3

The report also provides the percentage of all TANF cases in which a full-family sanction was imposed

in an average month in 1998, by state, as a basis to compare full-family sanction activity from state to

state.
Page 2 GAO/HEHS-00-133R Questions on TANF Sanctions

1) Can the number of full-family sanctions in an average month in 1998 be annualized

and used to determine the impact full-family sanctions had that year on caseload

size?

Under TANF, full-family sanctions can be imposed, and thus cases can be closed and

reopened, multiple times in a year. Thus, annualizing the number of full-family

sanctions in an average month, while providing an indication of the total number of

times full-family sanctions were imposed in a year, would probably overstate the

number of families who received full-family sanctions during that year and, thus, the

impact of full-family sanctions on caseload size. An unduplicated count of families

receiving full-family sanctions could not be derived from the data the states furnished

to us. Developing an unduplicated count of all families whose cases were closed due

to full-family sanctions in a given year would require substantial resources.

2) What constitutes the combined number of full-family and partial sanctions in an

average month during 1998?

We calculated the total number of sanctions in an average month in 1998 by

combining the number of full-family sanctions in an average month and the number

of partial sanctions in an average month that year. However, in state automated data

systems, case closures associated with full-family sanctions are recorded only in the

month the action is taken to close the case. In contrast, benefit reductions associated

with partial sanctions are recorded by states not only in the month action initiating a

benefit reduction is taken, but also in each subsequent month that the benefit

reduction remains in effect.4 As a result, a family that received a partial sanction in

1998 that remained in effect for 3 months, for example, appeared 3 times in a state’s

monthly numbers of partially sanctioned cases that year, while a family that received

a full-family sanction was counted only in the month the case was closed due to full

family sanction.

If you have any questions, please contact me on (202) 512-7215.

Sincerely yours,

Cynthia M. Fagnoni

Director, Education, Workforce, and

Income Security Issues

(116044)

4

For most states, we were unable to distinguish between partial sanctions initiated and partial

sanctions in effect in a given month.