Feature Story

July 5, 2007

Changes in Federal TANF Rules Could Help States Meet Welfare Reform Goals

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The effect of the the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) is to significantly increase the proportion of TANF recipients that states would be required to engage in a specified set of work activities for a federally-prescribed number of hours each week.

The law also grants broad new regulatory authority to the Department of Health and Human Services --- the federal agency that oversees the TANF block grant --- in several areas.

Taken together, most states as well as many outside analysts view the new regulations as restrictive.

Last August, HHS received more than 500 sets of comments from states, organizations, and members of the public about the regulations.

States often cannot get credit toward the work participation rate when they individualize the work requirements for recipients with disabilities, as they are required to do under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Services Act, and HHS's own Office of Civil Rights guidance on this issue.

Some of the requirements for tracking and verifying hours of participation are burdensome and counterproductive, particularly for participants in education and training programs that serve non-TANF and TANF recipients alike.

In addition to these issues, Congress should consider additional changes that are unrelated to the new regulations but reflect legislative proposals that had significant support during the TANF reauthorization debate but were not included in the final legislation, in most cases because they were legislative changes that are not allowed in a "reconciliation" bill.

In some cases, the preamble provided greater detail about what HHS intended in a regulation and in other cases the preamble actually included requirements that are not found in the regulations.