Welfare, Welfare Reform, & TANF

In the years since welfare reform transformed federal cash assistance for the poor into to the time-limited, work-focused Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program, the issue of substance abuse among welfare recipients has arisen periodically as a policy and programmatic concern.

Submitted to: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) Report Prepared by: Pamela Loprest and Austin Nichols The Urban Institute

This ASPE Research Brief presents information on trends in the rate of being disconnected from both work and public assistance, and the characteristics of the disconnected group compared to all low-income single mothers. The data are from a project examining the characteristics and experiences of low-income single mothers who are not working or receiving public assistance. [6 PDF pages]

This paper reports the results of a survey of state TANF rules regarding the treatment of unrelated cohabitors in households containing TANF units. The research focused primarily on identifying differences in how the eligibility of a family is treated depending on the household adult(s) relationship to the children, and, to the extent it matters, marital status.

This report uses information from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in 2005 and 2006 — the years when the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) was passed and first being implemented — to provide a snapshot of the different types of disabilities among recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), how disability prevalence among TANF recipients compares to othe

This Housing Status Assessment Guide for State TANF and Medicaid Programs is part of a study entitled Homelessness Data for HHS Mainstream Programs, that explored the extent to which states collect data on housing status and homelessness from applicants for the two largest HHS mainstream programs that may serve indi