Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors, Twenty-Fourth Report to Congress

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-432) requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare an annual report to Congress on indicators and predictors of “welfare dependence.” That Act requires the report to include three programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program), the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly the Food Stamp Program).

Key Findings

• The share of the population receiving more than half of their income from the TANF, SNAP and SSI programs increased from 3.6 percent in 2021 to 3.9 percent in 2022. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the percent of the total population who lived in households receiving more than half of their total annual income from TANF, SNAP and/or SSI had been decreasing steadily since 2010.
• TANF and SSI participation rates among eligible people rose 1.2 percentage points in 2022. Participation in the TANF program among eligible families was 12.0 percentage points lower in 2022 than its peak in 2011, from 33.9 in 2011 to 21.9 in 2022. The SNAP participation rate by eligible households rose to to 91.6 percent in 2022.This is 1.5 percentage points above the previous historic peak in 2013 of 90.1 percent. SSI participation by eligible adults rose to 55.5 percent in 2022 from 54.3 percent in 2021; the 2022 level is 11.8 percentage points below the 67.3 percent level in 2011.

Related Products:

• Prior years of the report