Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors, Twenty-Fifth 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 remained largely unchanged, decreasing from 3.9 percent in 2022 to 3.7 percent in 2023. 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 remained largely unchanged, with a 0.1 percentage point increase in 2023. Participation in the TANF program among eligible families was 11.8 percentage points lower in 2023 than its most recent peak in 2011, from 33.9 in 2011 to 22.1 in 2023. The SNAP participation rate by eligible households in 2022 was 91.6 percent. This is 1.5 percentage points above the previous historic peak in 2013 of 90.1 percent. SSI participation by eligible adults decreased to 54.3 percent in 2023 from 55.5 percent in 2022; the 2023 level is 13 percentage points below the 67.3 percent level in 2011.

Related Products:

• Prior Years of the Report