Full Citation
Title: TANF Cash Assistance Should Reach Millions More Families to Lessen Hardship
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2022
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Abstract: Families experiencing poverty need access to cash assistance to help them afford their basic needs and maintain stability, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Families use assistance provided by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to pay for rent, utilities, diapers, food, transportation, and other necessities. Yet too few families struggling to make ends meet can access the program, and TANF’s history of racism means that it fails to reach many families in states where Black children are likelier to live. If TANF had the same reach in 2020 as its predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Child (AFDC), did in 1996, 2.38 million more families nationwide would have received cash assistance. Instead, in 2020, for every 100 families in poverty nationwide, only 21 received TANF cash assistance — down from 68 families in 1996. At an economically precarious time for families, this “TANF-to-poverty ratio” (TPR) is the lowest in the program’s history.
Url: https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/6-16-15tanf.pdf
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Authors: Shrivastava, Aditi; Thompson, Gina
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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity
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