The Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) is permanently authorized by Title XX, Subtitle A, of the Social Security Act as a "capped" entitlement to states. This means that states (and territories) are entitled to their share of funds, as determined by formula, out of an amount that is capped in statute at a specific level (also known as a funding ceiling). Although social services for certain welfare recipients have been authorized under various titles of the Social Security Act since 1956, the SSBG in its current form was created in 1981 ( P.L. 97-35 ). Block grant funds are given to states to achieve a wide range of social policy goals, which include promoting self-sufficiency, preventing child abuse, and supporting community-based care for the elderly and disabled. Since FY2002, annual appropriations laws have funded the SSBG at its authorized level of $1.7 billion. However, starting in FY2013, SSBG appropriations have been subject to sequestration, a spending reduction process by which budgetary resources are canceled to enforce budget policy goals. Full-year FY2017 appropriations were not enacted prior to the start of the fiscal year. Instead, temporary funding for the SSBG has been provided through December 9, 2016, by a continuing resolution ( P.L. 114-223 , Division C). The continuing resolution (CR) maintained SSBG funding at current-law levels ($1.7 billion, less sequestration). Annual appropriations laws since FY2001 have included a provision allowing states to transfer up to 10% of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants to the SSBG. In addition to annual appropriations, the SSBG occasionally receives supplemental appropriations to assist states and territories in responding to natural disasters, including in FY2006, FY2008, and FY2013 (for more information, see Appendix B ). Health reform legislation enacted into law ( P.L. 111-148 ) in March 2010 amended Title XX of the Social Security Act to include a subtitle on elder justice and to establish several other programs. Although these changes, briefly reviewed later, have technical importance for the statutory citations of the SSBG, they did not substantively amend the provisions within Title XX that govern the SSBG itself and they are not discussed at length in this report. Likewise, this report does not discuss the special SSBG program for enterprise communities and empowerment zones that was authorized in 1993 ( P.L. 103-66 ), but is not currently funded. At the federal level, the SSBG is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Legislation amending Title XX is typically reported by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Federal law establishes the five broad goals for the SSBG. Social services funded by states must be linked to one or more of these goals. The five goals are achieving or maintaining economic self-support to prevent, reduce, or eliminate dependency; achieving or maintaining self-sufficiency, including reduction or prevention of dependency; preventing or remedying neglect, abuse, or exploitation of children and adults unable to protect their own interests, or preserving, rehabilitating, or reuniting families; preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care by providing for community-based care, home-based care, or other forms of less intensive care; and securing referral or admission for institutional care when other forms of care are not appropriate, or providing services to individuals in institutions. States have broad discretion in spending SSBG funds to support these broad goals. The following are examples of social services, as specified in law, that relate to the SSBG's broad goals: child care, protective services for children and adults, services for children and adults in foster care, services related to the management and maintenance of the home, adult day care, transportation, family planning, training and related services, employment services, referral and counseling services, meal preparation delivery, health support services, and services to meet the special needs of children, the aged, the mentally retarded, the blind, the emotionally disturbed, the physically handicapped, and alcoholics and drug addicts. In 1993, HHS issued a regulation establishing uniform definitions for 28 SSBG service categories. State spending is not limited to these services; instead, these service categories are used as guidelines for reporting purposes. (Spending on an activity that falls outside the scope of services defined in regulation is characterized under "other services" on annual reports.) In addition to supporting social services, SSBG funds may be used for administration, planning, evaluation, and training. (See Table 3 for a full list of the service categories reported on by states.) States may also transfer up to 10% of their SSBG allotments to block grants for health activities and low-income home energy assistance. Although SSBG funds can be used for a broad array of activities, some restrictions are placed on the use of these funds. Funds cannot be used for the following: (1) purchase of land, construction, or major capital improvements; (2) cash payments as a service or for costs of subsistence or room and board (other than costs of subsistence during rehabilitation, temporary emergency shelter provided as a protective service, or in the case of vouchers for certain families as allowed under welfare reform); (3) payment of wages as a social service (except wages of welfare recipients employed in child day care); (4) most medical care (except family planning, rehabilitation services, initial detoxification of certain individuals, or medical care provided as an "integral but subordinate component of a social service"); (5) social services for residents of institutions (including hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons); (6) educational services generally provided by public schools; (7) child care that does not meet applicable state or local standards; (8) services provided by anyone excluded from participation in Medicare or certain other Social Security Act programs; or (9) items or services related to assisted suicide (this provision was added in 1997, under P.L. 105-12 ). Under extraordinary circumstances, the law does allow HHS to waive two of these prohibitions (use of the SSBG for the purchase of land or capital improvements, or for the provision of medical care). There are no federal eligibility criteria for SSBG participants. Thus, states have total discretion to set their own eligibility criteria. One exception is that welfare reform established an income limit of 200% of poverty for recipients of services funded by TANF allotments that are transferred to the SSBG. The 1996 welfare reform law replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a block grant to states, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), under Title IV-A of the Social Security Act. The law allowed states to transfer up to 10% of their annual TANF allotments into the SSBG. Under provisions of the Transportation Equity Act of 1998 ( P.L. 105-178 ), the amount that states could transfer into SSBG was reduced to 4.25% of their annual TANF allotments, beginning in FY2001. However, this provision was superseded in FY2001 by the FY2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which maintained the 10% transfer authority level. Likewise, the FY2002 appropriations bill presented to the President maintained the 10% transfer authority for FY2002. Earlier, the House had passed its version of a Labor, HHS, Education appropriations bill ( H.R. 3061 ) proposing to maintain the 10% transfer authority, while the Senate's amended version proposed a 5.7% transfer level. Ultimately, appropriations acts maintained the transfer authority at 10% in FY2003-FY2016 as well. There has been some confusion about whether or not the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA, P.L. 109-171 ) permanently reinstated the 10% transfer authority. This law extended the TANF program, through the end of FY2010, in the manner authorized for FY2004 . In that fiscal year, the Social Security Act capped states' authority to transfer TANF funds to the SSBG at 4.25%, but this law was superseded by the FY2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act ( P.L. 108-199 ), which maintained the practice of allowing 10% transfers from TANF to the SSBG. In the wake of the DRA, Congress has continued to ensure that the transfer ceiling stays at 10% by including language to that effect in appropriations legislation. Over the course of FY1998-FY2015, states annually transferred roughly $1 billion of their TANF funds to the SSBG. In FY2015 alone, 38 states (including the District of Columbia) transferred a combined $1.2 billion to the SSBG, with 28 of those states taking advantage of the higher transfer ceiling by moving more than 4.25% of their TANF funds to the SSBG (see Table A-1 in Appendix A for FY2015 state-by-state data). Funds transferred from TANF to the SSBG can be used only for children and families whose income is less than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines. Under welfare reform law, states also may use SSBG funds for vouchers for families that are not eligible for cash assistance because of time limits under the welfare reform program, or for children who are denied cash assistance because they were born into families already receiving benefits for another child. On September 29, 2016, President Obama signed into law H.R. 5325 , which contains the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2017, in Division C ( P.L. 114-223 ). This law generally funds annually appropriated entitlements, like the SSBG, at their current-law levels through December 9, 2016, or until full-year appropriations are enacted.