Indicators of Welfare Dependence: Annual Report to Congress, 2005 . Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

The Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program — originally named the Aid to Dependent Children program — was established by the Social Security Act of 1935 as a grant program to enable states to provide cash welfare payments for needy children who had been deprived of parental support or care because their father or mother was absent from the home, incapacitated, deceased, or unemployed. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands operated an AFDC program. States defined “need,” set their own benefit levels, established (within federal limitations) income and resource limits, and administered the program or supervised its administration. States were entitled to unlimited federal funds for reimbursement of benefit payments, at “matching” rates that were inversely related to state per capita income. States were required to provide aid to all persons who were in classes eligible under federal law and whose income and resources were within state-set limits.

During the 1990s, the federal government increasingly used its authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to waive portions of the federal requirements under AFDC. This allowed states to test such changes as expanded earned income disregards, increased work requirements and stronger sanctions for failure to comply with them, time limits on benefits, and expanded access to transitional benefits such as child care and medical assistance. As a condition of receiving waivers, states were required to conduct rigorous evaluations of the impacts of these changes on the welfare receipt, employment, and earnings of participants.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) replaced AFDC, AFDC administration, the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program and the Emergency Assistance (EA) program with a block grant called the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Key elements of TANF include a lifetime limit of five years (60 months) on the amount of time a family with an adult can receive assistance funded with federal funds, increasing work participation rate requirements that states must meet, and broad state flexibility on program design. Spending through the TANF block grant is capped and funded at $16.5 billion per year, slightly above fiscal year 1995 federal expenditures for the four component programs. States also must meet a “maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement” by spending on needy families at least 75 percent of the amount of state funds used in FY 1994 on these programs (80 percent if they fail work participation rate requirements).

TANF gives states wide latitude in spending both federal TANF funds and state MOE funds. Subject to a few restrictions, TANF funds may be used in any way that supports one of the four statutory purposes of TANF: to provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for at home; to end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.

Recent Legislative Action

Legislative authority for the TANF block grant program expired September 2002. Since then, the program has been operated under a series of short-term extensions.

In February 2002, President Bush proposed a plan, Working Toward Independence, to strengthen welfare reform, in order to help families remaining on welfare and other low-income families move toward self-sufficiency. The House of Representatives passed bills incorporating the key elements of the President’s plan in both the 107^th Congress (H.R. 4737) and the 108^th Congress (H.R. 4), with work progressing on a similar bill (H.R. 240) in the 109^th Congress. Senate versions of TANF reauthorization have been reported out of committee (S. 667 in the 109^th Congress). Final enactment of TANF reauthorization is expected in 2005.

Data Issues Relating to the AFDC-TANF Transition

States had the option of beginning their TANF programs as soon as PRWORA was enacted in August 1996, and a few states began TANF programs as early as September 1996. All states were required to implement TANF by July 1, 1997. Because states implemented TANF at different times, the FY 1997 data reflect a combination of the AFDC and TANF programs. In some states, limited data are available for FY 1997 because states were given a transition period of six months after they implemented TANF before they were required to report data on the characteristics and work activities of TANF participants.

Because of the greatly expanded range of activities allowed under TANF, a substantial portion of TANF funds are being spent on activities other than cash payments to families. Table TANF 4 in this Appendix which tracks overall expenditure trends includes only those TANF funds spent on “cash and work-based assistance” and “administrative costs,” not on work activities, supportive services, or other allowable uses of funds. Spending on these other activities is detailed in Table TANF 5. Note that TANF administrative costs include funds spent administering all activities, not just cash and work-based assistance. (Administrative costs under AFDC had included a small amount of funds for administering AFDC child care programs; such programs, and the costs of administering them, were transferred to the Child Care and Development Fund as part of PRWORA.)

There also is potential for discontinuity between the AFDC and the TANF caseload figures. For example, under TANF there is no longer a separate “Unemployed Parent” (UP) program, as there was under AFDC. While a separate work participation rate is calculated for two-parent families, this population is not identical to the UP caseload under AFDC. It is also possible that a limited number of families will be considered recipients of TANF assistance, even if they do not receive a monthly cash benefit. At present, the vast majority of families receiving “assistance”¹ are, in fact, receiving cash payments; however, this may change over time.

One source of discontinuity was removed in the 2004 edition of the Indicators report. Under TANF some states provide cash and other forms of assistance to specific categories of families (e.g., two-parent families) under Separate State Programs (SSPs), funded out of MOE dollars rather than federal TANF funds. This allows the states additional flexibility with regard to the time limits and work requirements. The official TANF caseload figures do not include these families. Starting with the 2004 edition, we have added recipients in SSPs into the caseload totals (the split between TANF and SSP caseloads is shown in Table TANF 3, nationally, and in Table TANF 15, by state) but Tribal TANF families are not included in any of the caseload counts. Expenditures for Separate State Programs are shown in Table TANF 5.

AFDC/TANF Program Data

The following tables and figures present data on caseloads, expenditures, and recipient characteristics of the AFDC and TANF programs. Trends in national caseloads and expenditures are shown in Figure TANF 1 and the first set of tables (Tables TANF 1 through 6). These are followed by information on characteristics of AFDC/TANF families (Table TANF 7)² and a series of tables presenting state-by-state data on trends in the AFDC/TANF program (Tables TANF 8 through 17). These data complement the data on trends in AFDC/TANF recipiency and participation rates shown in Tables IND 3a and IND 4a in Chapter II.

AFDC/TANF Caseload Trends (Tables TANF 1 through TANF 3 and Figure TANF 1). Welfare caseloads have stabilized over the past few years after declining dramatically during the 1990s. In fiscal year 2003, the average monthly number of TANF recipients was 5.5 million persons, down 2.4 percent from FY 2002. Moreover, this was 56 percent lower than the average monthly AFDC caseload in fiscal year 1996 and the smallest number of people on welfare since 1968. From the peak of 14.4 million in March 1994, the number of AFDC/TANF recipients dropped by nearly 63 percent to 5.3 million in March 2004.³ Over three-fourths of the reduction in the caseload since March 1994 has occurred following the implementation of TANF (data not shown). These are the largest welfare caseload declines in the history of U.S. welfare programs.

Several studies have attempted to explain the unprecedented decline in caseloads and, specifically, to disentangle the effects of PRWORA and welfare reform from the simultaneous growth in the U.S. economy. Separating these effects is difficult, however, because PRWORA was enacted at a time when the economy was expanding dramatically, offering a uniquely conducive environment within which to move many recipients off the welfare rolls and into the labor market. Other policy changes, most notably expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit, add further complexity.

In general, studies have found that both economic conditions and welfare reform policies have played important roles in the recent caseload decline. A review of a dozen studies concluded that roughly 15 to 30 percent of the caseload decline prior to 1996 was attributed by most studies to welfare policies under waivers to the AFDC rules with approximately 30 to 45 percent of the decline explained by economic conditions (Schoeni and Blank, 2000). A study by the Council of Economic Advisers (1999) of the post-PRWORA period finds that just over one-third of the caseload decline can be explained by welfare reform policy, while 8 to 10 percent is due to the economy. A more recent study estimates that over half the decline in caseloads after enactment of PRWORA was attributable to welfare reform (O’Neill and Hill, 2001). The relative stability of the caseload during the recent recession further supports the argument that the economy was only one of several factors driving caseloads down.

AFDC/TANF Expenditures (Tables TANF 4 through TANF 6 and Figure TANF 2). Tables TANF 4 and 5 show trends in expenditures on AFDC and TANF. Table TANF 4 tracks both programs, breaking out the costs of benefits and administrative expenses. It also shows the division between federal and state spending. Table TANF 5 shows the variety of activities funded under the TANF program.

Figure TANF 2 and Table TANF 6 show that inflation has had a significant effect in eroding the value of the average monthly AFDC/TANF benefit. In real dollars, by 2003 the average monthly benefit per recipient had declined to 61 percent of what it was at its peak in the late 1970s.

AFDC/TANF Recipient Characteristics (Table TANF 7). With the dramatic declines in the welfare rolls since the implementation of TANF, there has been a great deal of speculation regarding how the composition of the caseload has changed. Two striking trends are the increases in the proportion of families with no adult in the assistance unit and in employment among adult recipients.

One of the most dramatic trends is the increase in the proportion of adult recipients who are working. In FY 2003, 23 percent of TANF adult recipients were employed, up from 11 percent in FY 1996 and 7 percent in FY 1993, as shown in Table TANF 7. Adding in those in work experience and community service positions, the percentage working was 28 percent in FY 2003 (data not shown). Similar upward trends are shown in data on income from earnings. These trends likely reflect positive effects of welfare-to-work programs, the strong economy, and the fact that, with larger earnings disregards, families with earnings do not exit welfare as rapidly. In addition, the increased employment of welfare recipients is consistent with broader trends in labor force participation. (For example, see Table WORK 2 in Chapter III for trends in employment rates for women with no more than a high school education.)

In other areas, the administrative data show fewer changes in composition than might have been expected. There has been widespread anecdotal evidence that the most job ready recipients B those with the fewest barriers to employment B have already exited the welfare caseload and have stopped coming onto the welfare rolls, leaving a more disadvantaged population remaining. However, as the expectations for welfare recipients have increased, and fewer recipients are totally exempted from work requirements, others have speculated that the most disadvantaged recipients may also have been sanctioned off the rolls or terminated for failure to comply with administrative requirements. In fact, analyses of program data have not found much evidence of an increase or decline in readily observed barriers to employment in the current caseload.

The question of whether the caseload has become more disadvantaged cannot be answered simply through administrative data provided by the states, which do not contain detailed information on such barriers to employment as lack of basic skills, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, and disabilities. A few recent studies have found very high levels of these barriers among the TANF population. These studies also have found that the effects of these barriers are interactive; while any one barrier to employment can often be overcome, the more barriers a recipient faces, the less likely she is to find a job and maintain consistent employment over a period of time.

AFDC/TANF State-by-State Trends (Tables TANF 8 through TANF 17). There is a great deal of state-to-state variation in the trends discussed above. For example, as shown in Table TANF 10, while every state has experienced a caseload decline since 1993, the percentage change between the state’s caseload peak and March 2004 ranges from 95 percent (Wyoming) to 28 percent (Indiana). Five states have experienced caseload declines of 75 percent or more. Table TANF 10 also shows that states reached their peak caseloads as early as May 1990 (Louisiana) and as late as June 1997 (Hawaii).

Table TANF 15 shows TANF and Separate State Program (SSP) families and recipients, by state. Tables TANF 16 and 17 use a data source available beginning in 2003, the High Performance Bonus data, which links TANF administrative records with quarterly earnings records, and allows examination of patterns of TANF receipt and employment. For example, Table TANF 16 shows the range across states in employment rates among TANF recipients (where employment is measured by presence of quarterly earnings in the same calendar quarter as one or more months of TANF recipient or in the immediately subsequent quarter). Table 17 complements the data on program spell duration provided in Table IND 8 in Chapter II, by examining state-by-state variation in the percentage of TANF recipients that receive benefits over the course of one year (four quarters) after a selected calendar quarter.

Figure TANF 1. AFDC/TANF Families Receiving Income Assistance

Note: “Basic Families” are single-parent families and “UP Families” are those two-parent cases whose eligibility was due to unemployment and who received benefits under AFDC Unemployed Parent programs that operated in certain states before FY 1991 and in all states after October 1, 1990. The AFDC Basic and UP programs were replaced by TANF in the period from September 1996 to July 1, 1997 under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Shaded areas indicate NBER designated periods of recession from peak to trough. The decrease in number of families receiving assistance during the 1981-82 recession stems from changes in eligibility requirements and other policy changes mandated by OBRA 1981. Beginning in 2000, “Total Families” includes TANF and SSP families. Last data point plotted is March 2004.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.

Figure TANF 2. Average Monthly AFDC/TANF Benefit per Recipient in Constant 2003 Dollars

Note: See Table TANF 6 for underlying data. Comparison of trends in the average monthly AFDC/TANF benefit per recipient in current and constant 2003 dollars with the weighted average maximum benefit in current and constant 2003 dollars since 1988 indicates that the primary cause of the decline in the average monthly benefit has been due to the erosion in the real value of the maximum benefit due to inflation as the current value of maximum benefits was not increased in most states during most of the 1990s.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Quarterly Public Assistance Statistics, 1992 & 1993 plus unpublished data and Seventh TANF Annual Report to Congress, 2005.

Note: Beginning in 2000, all caseload numbers include SSP families.

¹ Includes unemployed parent families and child-only cases.

² The AFDC Unemployed Parent program was replaced when the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 repealed AFDC and set up the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program which was implemented during the period from September 1996 to July 1, 1997.

³ Based on data from the old AFDC reporting system that were available only for the first 9 months of the fiscal year.

Note: Benefits do not include emergency assistance payments and have not been reduced by child support collections. Foster care payments are included from 1971 to 1980. State funds for benefits include benefits under Separate State Programs. Beginning in fiscal year 1984, the cost of certifying AFDC households for food stamps is shown in the Food Stamp Program’s appropriation under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Administrative and systems costs include: Work Program, ADP, FAMIS, Fraud Control, Child Care administration (through 1996), SAVE and other State and local administrative expenditures.

¹ Constant dollar adjustments to 2003 level were made using a CPI-U-X1 fiscal year price index.

² Includes expenditures for services.

³ These year-to-year changes likely reflect the fact that States now report corrections from prior years in the current year.

⁴ The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 repealed the AFDC program and replaced it with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under PRWORA, spending categories are not entirely equivalent to those under AFDC: for example administrative expenses under TANF do not include IV-A child care administration (which accounted for 4 percent of 1996 administrative expense).

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Financial Services.

¹ Other includes accounts for: Assistance under Prior Law, Individual Development Accounts, Refundable EITC, Other Refundable Tax Credits, Non-Recurring Short-Term Benefits, Non-Assistance under Prior Law, Pregnancy Prevention, 2-Parent Formation, and Miscellaneous.

Note: Administration and Systems, shown separately here in Table TANF 5, can be combined to show total administrative costs, as in Table TANF 4. Negative numbers are possible since under TANF States now report corrections from prior years in the current year.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Financial Services.

Table TANF 6. Trends in AFDC/TANF Average Monthly Payments: 1962–2003

Note: AFDC benefit amounts have not been reduced by child support collections. Constant dollar adjustments to 2003 level were made using a CPI-U-X1 fiscal-year price index. See the note to Figure TANF 2 for explanation of the decline in real benefits.

1 The maximum benefit for a 3-person family in each state is weighted by that state’s share of total AFDC families.

2 Estimated based on the weighted average benefit for a 4-person family.

3 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 repealed the AFDC program as of July 1, 1997 and replaced it with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Beginning in 1997, average monthly benefits are calculated from case-level data rather than by dividing aggregate expenditures on cash assistance by aggregate caseloads, as in the past. This change was necessary due to uncertainty about the extent to which states may be reporting non-cash basic assistance as well as cash assistance in the expenditure data formerly used to calculate average cash benefits.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Quarterly Public Assistance Statistics, 1992 & 1993 and earlier years along with unpublished data.

Table TANF 7. Characteristics of AFDC/TANF Families: Selected Years 1969–2003

Note: Figures are percentages of families/cases unless noted otherwise.

1 Percentages are based on the average monthly caseload during the year. Hawaii and the territories are not included in 1983. Data after 1986 include the territories and Hawaii.

2 In this table, child-only families are those families with no adult in the assistance unit excluding those where there is no adult in the assistance unit as a result of the parent being sanctioned for non-compliance.

3 Percentages on presence of income are measured as a percentage of families through 1997 and for adult recipients in 1998 and subsequent years.

4 For years prior to 1983, data are for mothers only.

5 Calculated on the basis of total number of families.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients: 2003 TANF Annual Report to Congress and earlier years.

Note: Benefits refers to total cash benefits paid, (see Table TANF 4) but does not include emergency assistance payments. NA denotes data not available. See footnote 3 of Table TANF 4 for an explanation of the recent changes in benefit expenditures.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Program Support, Office of Management Services, data from the ACF-196 TANF Report and ACF-231 AFDC Line by Line Report.

¹ Includes Administration and FAMIS but excludes IV-A child care. AFDC benefits include the Federal share of child support collections to be comparable to the Family Assistance Grant. The 1996 figures have been revised since earlier versions of this report, to reflect upward revisions in states' reports of expenditures on the JOBS program.

² The FY 2003 Family Assistance Grants and Supplemental is net of the Tribal Grants amounts.

³ The FY 2003 Bonus Awards include Out of Wedlock Bonus and High Performance Bonus.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Financial Services

¹Negative values denote percent increase.

Note: these data do not include Tribal TANF families (about 8,000 in number). This makes little difference nationally, but in States like Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona, their exclusion under TANF overstates the real decline from AFDC years.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Division of Data Collection and Analysis.

Note: Recipients in 2000 and beyond include both TANF and SSP recipients but do not include Tribal TANF recipients.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, 2003 TANF Report to Congress.

Note: Recipiency rate refers to the average monthly number of AFDC recipients in each state during the given fiscal year expressed as a percent of the total resident population as of July 1 of that year. The numerators are from Table TANF 11.

Sources: U. S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Bureau of the Census, (Resident population by state available on line at http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/state/).