Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or “TANF”, as it’s often referred to, is a block grant program that was created by the United States Congress in August 1996. A block grant is money that the Federal government provides to states and local governments, intended to for use as part of specific programs and services. TANF was signed by then-President, Bill Clinton, with the intention of replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Act, often referred to as the, “AFDC”. The AFDC provided cash benefits to families with children starting in 1935, before it was replaced by TANF as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or “PRWORA”, for short. The PRWORA is also sometimes referred to as the Welfare Reform Act. To best understand TANF, it is useful to know information about the AFDC. (Pilon, 2025).
The purpose of the AFDC - which developed from its first iteration, the Aid to Dependent Children, or “ADC” - was to provide cash assistance to support children who did not have sufficient financial support or care from guardians, due to absence, unemployment, disability or death. As part of the Social Security Act of 1935, the AFDC was the federal government’s response to the need for support among the most vulnerable of the country’s population, including children, the elderly and disabled and the unemployed. When AFDC was in place, all fifty United States, as well as the United States territories of the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico had programs that followed federal guidelines to establish and administer assistance to families in need. Today, all fifty states and the previously mentioned territories have TANF programs. Following 1935, several amendments were made to the Social Security Act: some to increase access to benefits, and others to decrease access to benefits (ASPE, 2025).
Like AFDC, TANF was created to provide federal funding to the United States and federal territories to empower them to create financial assistance programs in support of qualifying families. While the AFDC was intended to provide financial assistance to children in need, enabling mothers to stay home and care for their children rather than being out of the home to earn living wages, TANF was created for the purpose of temporarily supporting parents as they sought gainful employment outside the home. TANF’s replacement of AFDC was motivated by the decades-long debate regarding government “social safety net” programs. This was partially due to an increase in the number of families receiving financial aid, rising from 3.7 million in 1988 to 4.9 million in 1992, as noted in CRS Report RL32760. In the book Whose Welfare, Steven Teles discusses opinion polls which suggested that sentiment that welfare programs were receiving too much government funding rose at the same time that the number of eligible families increased (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998).
Individuals seeking TANF assistance must apply with their state or local TANF authorities and programs. This website features an interactive map, with information and links for each state’s TANF agencies and programs. TANF eligibility requires that applicants are considered low-income, as defined by the federal poverty line. They must be pregnant or have dependent children, 18 years old or younger and they must participate in approved vocational or skills training programs. In Illinois, applicants may be pregnant or have children under the age of 18, or 19 if the child is attending high school full-time, must be a resident of Illinois, may be a U.S. citizen or a qualified non-citizen or immigrant. This study by the National Center for Children in Poverty found that the average monthly TANF payment to a family of three in 2024 was approximately $552. Illinois had the 15th highest average payment of the fifty states, providing an approximately $725 per month to approved families.
TANF funding is granted to United States and territories by the federal government and states are entrusted with the task of creating programs to provide aid to families in need. Use of funding is regulated and states must adhere to certain federal standards, such as creating and implementing employment programs and retaining participant quotas. States are required to spend approximately 75 to 80 percent of their 1994 spending in AFDC programs. They must provide narrative TANF spending reports to the Department of Health and Human Services. The United States Government Accountability Office, “GAO”, found, in 2024, that seven states had incomplete narratives or were missing entirely for 2022 (GAO-25-107235, 2025).
While states must meet certain federal guidelines and provide reports on spending, they are entitled to flexibility in their compulsory application of TANF grants. The GAO reviewed TANF spending in response to a lack of detailed reporting on how states utilized it. In some cases, this lack of detailed reporting has been exploited, such as in the case of the diversion of $90 million dollars of TANF grant funding between 2016 and 2019. The state of Mississippi sued over forty individuals, including Brett Favre, in response to a range of misuses of TANF funds. Favre’s involvement, for example, included $1.1 million of TANF funds diverted to pay appearance fees to Favre for events he never attended and $5 million to building brand new volleyball courts on the campus of Favre’s and his daughter’s alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi.
TANF benefits can be useful to families who would be without critical financial support and successful vocational training and job acquisition programs can provide lasting improvements to quality of life. Every state receives TANF funding and has to provide access to resources and support for families in need to receive block grants. Combined with other programs, such as SNAP, TANF benefits are helpful, but they rarely provide sufficient resources and opportunities alone to sustain families in need. Recent revelations of misappropriation of TANF grants and declines in the value of some state’s TANF-funded employment programs have fueled criticism and calls for reform of the program. Some cite the regulations and eligibility requirements for recipient participation to reduce the overall benefit of the program as well. Efficacy of TANF programs seems to vary by state, so individuals may benefit more or less depending on the state in which they reside.
The fact that by law the TANF block grants given to states have not increased since 1996, and thus have diminished significantly when adjusted for inflation, is evidence that the Congress (even when the Democratic Party held the White House and both houses of Congress, as has been the case for four of the 29 years since TANF replaced AFDC) is not interested in providing cash benefits to low-income families with children. The preference seems to be that we should provide in-kind benefits through SNAP (which has increased significantly recently), Housing Choice Vouchers, and Medicaid. If there are cash benefits, they should be bestowed by the IRS through the EITC or the Child Tax Credit.
I have never found an estimate, but I would like to see one, of how many children are neglected because their single parents must go out and work in order to collect their TANF benefits, and they do not have adequate placements where their children could be supervised when they come home from school or enjoy a day off of school while their parents are at work.
I am not so entirely opposed to the idea in TANF that low-income single parents ought to be getting trained and prepared for work, or ought to be doing some work. But I would prioritize their ability to fill their roles as mothers or fathers, and make their responsibility to become self-sufficient or financially independent a secondary goal—an important goal—but not as important as parenting.
SOURCES AND RESEARCH LINKS
Explaining Block Grants - Investopedia
2022 PovertyAction.org - TANF Fact Sheet PDF
Office of Family Assistance - Links Page
Training and Technical Assistance
Declining Cash Assistance 1993 to 2016
Center on Policy Budget Priorities - Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Increases in TANF Benefit Critical to Families
TANF Cost Recovery In Child Support Program
States Should Invest TANF Dollars in Basic Assistance
TANF Helps Families - But Not As Much As Claimed
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