TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES (TANF)

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF is a lump grant that was fashioned by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of the year 1996 and it was a measurement of a federal attempt to “stop welfare as we are acquainted with it” (Lens, 2002, 289). The rationale of the TANF agenda is to offer temporary assistance for the care of needy children in their own homes or the homes of associations by offering economic, health and self-sufficiency services (Gariepy, 2005, 91-107).

Under TANF, the federal government provides block grants to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. Under TANF, states decide how much aid to provide to a needy family. The federal block grant for TANF is based on each state's peak level of federal expenditures for AFDC and related programs; for most states this was 1994 level (Gariepy, 2005, 91-107). No federal guidelines exist for determining eligibility and no requirement asks that states help all needy families. Though TANF does not have need of states to have a necessitate standard or a gross revenue limit, as did AFDC, numerous states have founded their programs in division on their former practices (Gariepy, 2005, 91-107).

The greatest advantage is the sum paid to a family unit with no countable proceeds. Federal law specifies what income counts toward figuring benefits and what income is to be disregarded by the state. The maximum benefit is paid only to those families that comply with TANF's work requirement (Gariepy, 2005, 91-107).

Even though TANF is called a block grant program, it actually combines seven different grants, and each grant has limited maximums.

The main goal of TANF is to move the recipients from receiving welfare benefits to working and being self-sufficient (Hawkins, 2005, 77-92). Current and past government administrations emphasized the importance of moving from welfare to workfare. The president Clinton who took the main role in introducing TANF said, “We want a welfare system which emphasizes getting people to work, self-sufficiency, and welfare as a transition, not as a way of life” (Hawkins, 2005, p. 78). TANF objectives are to reduce welfare dependence, a high rate of births out of wedlock, and high male unemployment, and ultimately achieve a goal of every family having a breadwinner and having people make better choices when it comes to education, ...