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Kerry Desjardins
is a Policy Analyst
for APHSA’s
Center for
Employment and
Economic Well-
Being.
Russell Sykes
is the Director of
APHSA’s Center for
Employment and
Economic Well-
Being.
Policy&Practice
February 2017
18
The Time Is Ripe for
TANF Modernization
There has been no full reauthoriza-
tion of TANF since 2005 under the
Deficit Reduction Act. Today, rei-
magining TANF is timely for several
reasons—a growing recognition that
there must be a path from an initial job
to higher quality employment in order
to achieve economic well-being; broad
acknowledgment that skill deficits and
other barriers to employment exist and
must be addressed to improve client
employment prospects over time; and
the opportunity for significant program
improvement and better services
for clients with the enactment of the
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act (WIOA) in 2014. It is time to recon-
sider the TANF program’s purposes,
what activities actually produce
positive outcomes, and how the overall
workforce system envisioned under the
WIOA can be further improved through
thoughtful TANF reauthorization and
modernization in 2017.
TANF must be modernized to better
prepare parents to obtain the necessary
entry and middle skills for meaningful
employment that increase family
economic security and well-being as
well as provide employers with staff
ready for the modern workplace. Over
the years, TANF has evolved into an
increasingly rigid and complex set of
interconnected funding streams, rules,
and mandates. It has also become too
complicated in regard to countable
activities and stringent work verifica-
tion procedures that divert state and
local staff time away from helping
work-eligible adults become employed.
However, the program can be updated
to reflect the realities of our rapidly
changing economy, particularly the
nature of jobs and the preparation
required for a positive career path, and
to support innovative approaches while
holding states accountable for mean-
ingful outcomes for families. Amajor
factor for future success in TANF is
renewed trust between federal and state
partners, which should be the hallmark
of TANF as it was at its initial passage in
1996. Finally, as we move toward a new
set of TANF policies and outcomes based
on actual job placement and retention
rather than current process measures,
we must remember that states will need
reasonable transition time to update
their own laws, business processes, and
data systems to support a more modern
and effective program.
Recommendation 1:
Make Changes in
2017 to Immediately
Improve the Current
TANF Program
1. To recognize the greater prepa-
ration prospective employees must
have for success in the modern
workplace, expand the number of
countable activities under the TANF
Work Participation Rate (WPR) to
include broader approaches. Permit
longer countable periods for currently
allowable activities such as vocational
education and job search/job readiness
beyond current limits.
2. Remove the current distinction
between core and noncore hours of
participation, which is both complicated
and unnecessary, and allow propor-
tional partial credit toward the WPR
for any work-eligible adult engaged in
activities for at least 10 hours per week
and calculated as a percentage of the
30-hour participation rule.
3. Eliminate the virtually unattain-
able two-parent 90 percent WPR,
which has forced most states to move
this TANF population to solely state-
funded programs.
4. Allow a 45-day grace period
before a new recipient is placed in the
denominator for the WPR. It takes at
least this amount of time to perform
a thorough assessment and enroll a
work-eligible TANF recipient in an
appropriate activity (the law actually
allows 90 days). After the 45 days, the
client should be in both the denomi-
nator and the numerator, if fully or
partially meeting the hours required
for TANF WPR purposes.
5. To encourage and incentivize
broader engagement and positive
employment outcomes, lessen the
severity of the work verification
requirement over the transition period
so caseworker time is not diverted
away from the core goals of TANF.
6. Change the current penalty struc-
ture in TANF for failing to meet the
WPR to one that solely requires states
to increase their own maintenance-
of-effort (MOE) investments, but
does not reduce the state share of
federal funds under the block grant.
Shifting the penalty structure toward
increased state MOE expenditures
will allow more state resources to
strengthen programs rather than
jeopardize states’ ability to help TANF
clients obtain employment.
[TANF] has also
become too
complicated in
regard to countable
activities and
stringent work
verification
procedures that
divert state and
local staff time
away from helping
work-eligible
adults become
employed.
See TANF at 20 on page 32