OPINION:
The summer of 1996 marked a historic triumph for America. Our nation hosted the Olympics. Will Smith saved the world from aliens in the movie “Independence Day.”
In Washington, a Republican-led Congress passed welfare reform, which President Bill Clinton ultimately signed into law.
Mr. Clinton called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families a “historic opportunity to end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and family.”
TANF replaced Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a cash welfare program that undermined work, marriage and family stability and lacked any real mechanism to propel recipients out of poverty. TANF was a major improvement over its predecessor.
Thirty years later, however, the program has diverged from its founding principles as many states exploit loopholes to avoid the reforms Congress intended.
TANF was structured as a capped block grant that funnels $17 billion in annual federal funding to states. Unlike open-ended entitlement programs, TANF spending does not automatically expand with inflation or caseload growth. That fiscal constraint protects taxpayers and reinforces the program’s purpose as a temporary bridge to work.
Work requirements are central to the design. Recipients must be engaged in work activities, and adult recipients are capped at 60 months of assistance.
These provisions are why Robert Rector, one of TANF’s chief architects, called the program a block grant “with moral principles.”
Welfare recipients quickly fell from 4.73 million families in June 1995 to fewer than 3 million families by June 1998, according to The Heritage Foundation. By 2017, the program had helped nearly 3 million people enter the workforce, the think tank found.
Over time, however, states have learned to satisfy federal requirements on paper while circumventing the work requirements designed to move people out of poverty.
Federal law requires that 50% of all families be engaged in work. However, in 2024, only 8% of all TANF families had someone working enough hours in unsubsidized employment to count under the federal work participation measure. The rate rises to 19% when “token payment” cases are included, in which states provide nominal benefits to otherwise working families and then count them toward their work participation rates.
Many states have also used the caseload reduction credit to avoid the work requirements. The credit was designed to reward states for reducing welfare dependency, but it has become a mechanism for dramatically lowering work requirements, so the requirement often disappears altogether. In fiscal year 2024, 39 states had a 0% adjusted work participation target.
Meanwhile, some states are regularly dipping into TANF’s Contingency Fund, which Congress established as an emergency reserve. The fund has evolved to a predictable annual transfer, with nearly 75% of all funds going to a small number of states. New York alone has received more than 40% of all funds since the fund’s creation.
TANF is, by law, limited to American citizens and a select group of legal residents, yet cash is being doled out to households headed by parents who are ineligible because of their immigration status, because a child in the home qualifies. Since 2001, a staggering $18.3 billion in TANF cash assistance has been distributed to children of parents who are in the country illegally.
Although U.S. citizens cannot receive TANF for more than five years, a child who is a citizen can receive the funding until turning 18. An American mother can receive benefits for only 60 months, but an illegal alien who gave birth in the U.S. could receive benefits for up to 216 months.
TANF brought necessary reform to a broken system, but now it needs to be reformed and protected from exploitation.
Federal law must measure real work engagement, not paper compliance, and states should not be able to satisfy work requirements through accounting maneuvers.
When states fail to meet their work requirements, consequences should be timely and strong. Stringent eligibility rules and federal oversight are needed to prevent illegal aliens from receiving TANF benefits.
TANF’s success should be measured by the number of Americans who no longer need it. Giving parents a real incentive to leave welfare today reduces the odds that their children will depend on it tomorrow.
Thirty years later, as America celebrates its semiquincentennial, with the right reforms, TANF can once again be triumphant and restore independence and dignity to Americans in need.
• Alex J. Adams is assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. David Swegle is director of the Office of Family Assistance.
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