NOTE: This document provides a range of proposals developed for consideration during upcoming discussions related to TANF Reauthorization. The proposals reflect views across the political spectrum. This listing is by no means exhaustive. We have tried to represent accurately organization and individual proposals. This has resulted in separate listing of some very similar proposals, and it is also possible that there are some notes of support or opposition that are not truly reflective of an individual's or organization's position. We apologize for any errors and welcome corrections. (Organizations and individuals associated with each proposal are provided in parentheses and there is a glossary of acronyms and affiliations of individuals on the last page)(Proposals related to Family Formation have not yet been included.)

Funding and TANF Block Grant Structure
Substantial concern exists that, with welfare caseloads down and more welfare recipients working, Congress may choose during TANF Reauthorization to view "welfare reform" as an accomplished fact and divert a substantial portion of TANF Block Grant funding to other purposes. The likelihood of an economic slowdown is also giving rise to urging that the TANF Block Grant should have a cyclical component. Another concern is the possibility that Congress may decide to impose new restrictions on states and their use of federal TANF Block Grant funding. The following proposals deal with these matters:

1. 1. Maintain TANF Block Grant funding at least at its current level (APHSA, NGA)].
2. 2. Maintain the TANF Block Grant structure (APHSA, NGA)

1. 3. Avoid "set-asides" or further restrictions on the use of TANF funds by states (APHSA, NGA)
2. 4. Allow states necessary funding to assist families with multiple barriers to employment and self-reliance (NGA).
3. 5. Allow states necessary resources to promote job retention, job advancement, and increased earnings (NGA).
4. 6. Allow states adequate funding and flexibility to promote work supports such as child care and transportion (NGA)
5. 7. Increase the amount in the Contingency Fund to assist states in the event of economic downturn (APHSA, NGA).
6. 8. Provide for a block grant increase to individual states to be triggered by increases in the unemployment rate (Blank).
7. 9. Increase the amount available in the state loan program to allow states in economic downturn to borrow money if they expend their TANF Block Grant funds (Haskins).
8. 10. Enhance state flexibility and simplify federal regulations (NGA).
9. 11. Allow states to maintain realistic "Rainy Day Funds" as a cushion against economic downturn (NGA).
10. 12. Maintain State Maintenance of Effort (MOE) at its current level (APHSA).
11. 13. Restore Title XX--Social Services Block Grant--funding and transferability (APHSA).
12. 14. Revise rules for supportive programs so that service deliverty can be coordinated and aligned, e.g., Food Stamps, Child Welfare, TANF, housing programs, transportation, workforce development, child support, child care, vocational rehabilitation, and Medicaid (NGA).

1. 1. Establish clearer federal requirements to assist families with serious barriers (Center for Law and Social Policy, hereafter cited as CLASP).
2. 2. Strengthen requirements for initial assessment and tie tick of the clock to receipt of appropriate interventions (CLASP).
3. 3. Offer states demos to test programs to provide work experience to parents with multiple barriers (Blank, Haskins).
4. 4. Ensure that states have adequate resources to develop and implement processes that identify hidden disabilities and other barriers, track families who have difficulty navigating the "work-first" TANF environment (including those who have been sanctioned), and develop processes that link the most disadvantaged families with appropriate, expert services (Zedlewski, Loprest).
5. 5. Allow states to exempt a higher percentage of their caseloads from time limits to enable maximum certainty that families with multiple problems have truly received appropriate interventions before they are terminated from assistance (Zedlewski, Loprest).
6. 6. Permit states to have different pathways in areas of high unemployment (Blank, Haskins)
7. 7. Offer states performance bonuses for getting families employed at above-poverty wages in areas of high unemployment (NCAI).
8. 8. Create more programs for adults with multiple barriers (Blank, Haskins).
9. 9. Create a policy mechanism that acknowledges some TANF parents will always need some financial support, and therefore are not subject to time limits. (These individuals should not be included in any percentage of allowable exemptions to time limits--such as the current 20 percent of average annual caseload provision--that may be established or retained during TANF Reauthorization (Blank).
10. 10. Provide states with the means to acknowledge and respond helpfully to families when resource shortages for families with barriers exist, e.g., in rural areas, on Indian Reservations (NCAI).
11. 11. Provide incentives to states to launch demonstration programs that place women unable to find private sectors jobs into public sector employment (Blank, Schmidt propose this specifically as a strategy for economic slowdown, but it appears to also apply for difficult to employ parents with multiple barriers).

1. 1. Add "to provide supports and assistance to the working poor" as a purpose of the TANF Program (CLASP).
2. 2. Give states the tools to provide adequate assistance to families who are unable to attain self-reliance (CLASP).
3. 3. Allow unobligated TANF money to be used for any family support purpose (APHSA).
4. 4. Allow-mandate states to adopt more appropriate pathways in areas lacking supportive resources such as mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence treatment; child care; transportation; and job training (NCAI).
5. 5. Make sure that work pays, e.g., raise the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and expand Medicaid to cover working families in the absence of employer-provided health care benefits (Mead).
6. 6. Condition EITC eligibility on some minimum of working hours in order to encourage more parents to work full-time (Mead).
7. 7. Resist calls to return to the education and training strategy of the Family Support Act, rather the emphasis needs to remain directly connected to work effort (Mead).
8. 8. Avoid increasing emphasis on efforts to deter unwed pregnancy or otherwise directly assault family problems until the public mandate on this is more clear and more effective programs can be identified, and instead stay focused on enforcing work on mothers, requiring payment of child support, and helping working families to "make it." (Mead).

1. 1. Make the reduction of poverty a purpose of the TANF Program (CLASP, NCAI, Primus).
2. 2. Add a TANF purpose with an express goal of reducing family poverty and promoting family economic well-being, and making it clear that the goal of promoting work includes supporting employment retention and workforce advancement for needy families (CLASP).
3. 3. Make reduction of poverty a state performance measure (CLASP).
4. 4. Require states to describe in their state plans how TANF and other resources will be used and coordinated in efforts to promote employment retention and advancement and enhance family economic well-being.
5. 5. Revise state performance measures to place a strong emphasis on poverty reduction, sustained employment, earnings growth, and higher wages (CLASP).
6. 6. Replace existing participation rate measures of state performance with results-oriented performance standards that measure outcomes for families, both those receiving TANF and for a broader group of low-income families who have left TANF assistance or never enrolled (CLASP).
7. 7. If the device of participation rates is continued, significantly broaden the list of countable activities so that individuals engaged in activities in their individualized employment plan are counted in participation rate calculations, and end the reward for caseload reduction without regard to whether families have entered employment (CLASP).
8. 8. Provide performance bonus money to states that make the greatest progress in reducing child and family poverty (Primus)
9. 9. Make assisting families to obtain jobs with above-poverty wages a performance measure (APHSA).
10. 10. Use TANF Performance Bonus money to reward states that help former welfare mothers get better jobs (Haskins).
11. 11. Expand education and training use for working, former welfare mothers to help them with job advancement and earnings increase (Haskins).
12. 12. Provide grants to states to experiment with and evaluate job retention and advancement programs for low-wage workers (Blank, Haskins).
13. 13. Allow states greater flexibility to place persons in training programs in addition to work-first job search programs (Blank, Schmidt).
14. 14. Allow states greater flexibility to place persons in training and education programs in addition to work-first job search programs, especially in areas with higher unemployment and for sub-populations that traditionally have suffered higher than average unemployment rates (Walsh & Weathers).
15. 15. Encourage firms or regional alliances to provide private sector training and job mobility opportunities that help less-skilled workers increase wages over time (Blank, Schmidt).
16. 16. Provide incentives to states to launch demonstration programs that place women unable to find private sectors jobs (particularly in times of economic slowdown) into public sector employment (Blank, Schmidt).
17. 17. Create new financial incentives that are tied to full-time work (Michalopoulos, Berlin).
18. 18. Increase the maximum amount that families can receive from the federal EITC and phase out the credit at a slower rate (Michalopoulos, Berlin).
19. 19. Expand the EITC only for people who work at least 30 hours a week (Michalopoulos, Berlin).

1. 1. Allow educational or training programs requiring substantial time commitment to count as a work activity without also requiring work (Blank).
2. 2. Give states incentives to experiment with public sector job creation programs (Blank).
3. Give states requirements or incentives to keep a percentage of their welfare caseload in work experience programs (Haskins).
4. 3. Require all TANF families to to engaged in work preparation of some type, rather than count only specific kinds of activities as part of the state participation rate (APHSA)
5. 4. Allow states to define "work activity" (APHSA, NCAI)
6. 5. Diversity TANF work requirements to fit local job markets; allow/mandate states to adopt more realistic pathways in areas of high unemployment (NCAI).
7. 6. Increase the use of job training as "work preparation" (CLASP, NCAI).
8. 7. Allow states to decide about work-for-welfare programs (Blank).

1. 1. Require/allow that states stop the TANF time clock when parents are working more than 25 hours per week (CLASP, Blank, Bloom, Pavetti, Michalopoulos, Berlin).
2. 2. Specify that exemptions to time limits for domestic violence shall fall outside of any percentage of caseload-driven exemption policy (CLASP).
3. 3. Allow exemptions to time limits to families with disabled members (CLASP).
4. 4. Ensure that states guard due process in imposing time limits (Blank, Haskins).
5. 5. Abolish the 60 month time limit, but if politically infeasible, give states more leeway in their use of extensions to time limits (Blank).
6. 6. Allow extensions to time limits for working families (CLASP).
7. 7. Retain time limits and current rules on extensions until states demonstrate that either are causing harm to families truly making efforts because states are hitting the extension limit (Haskins).
8. 8. Eliminate the 20 percent exemption rule and, instead, base exemptions on identifiable barriers to work that either they or the administering institution have been unable to address within the state or federal time limit (Blank).
9. 9. Ensure that research is done on outcomes for families whose cases were closed due to  time-limits (Blank, Haskins).
10. 10. Allow exemptions from time limits to families with infants (CLASP).
11. Ensure that whatever exemptions policy may be put in place can realistically fulfill the intended function even in times of economic slowdown (Scmidt, Blank).
12. 11. Eliminate the "lifetime" aspect of time-limits and, instead, give states encouragement and the flexibility to respond to continuing need for assistance, at least by less-skilled parents in a more normal or depressed economic [state and local] situations (Schmidt, Blank).
13. 12. Eliminate time limits altogether and rely instead--for meeting goals of ensuring recipients participate in activities that will lead to work--on state systems with full-family sanctions for non-participation. Additionally, allow states to broaden the range of allowable activities to help address the needs of families who have been sanctioned and longer-term recipients who may reach time limits without specific interventions not currently countable (Bloom, Pavetti).

1. 1. Ensure that research is done on outcomes for families suffering terminations due to sanctions (Blank, Haskins).
2. 2. Ensure that states guard due process in imposing sanctions (Blank, Haskins).
3. 3. Require all states to have and employ a thorough, documented conciliation process prior to sanctioning (CLASP).

1. 1. Provide Tribes with funding to get into the business of administering welfare programs, e.g., technology, infrastructure, data collection systems, reporting systems, administration, staff training (NCAI).
2. 2. Treat tribal entities like states in terms of administrative funding, contingency funds, etc. (NCAI).
3. 3. Extend access to performance bonuses and other incentive monies to Tribes (NCAI).
4. 4. Provide construction funding to Tribes to allow colocation of services (NCAI).
5. 5. Allow Tribes to grant hardship exemptions to more than 20 percent of the average annual caseload (NCAI).
6. 6. Require states to consult with Tribes on the TANF state plan to ensure that the needs of American Indians in state TANF Programs are taken into account (NCAI).
7. 7. Extend to Tribes access to evaluation and technical assistance currently offered to states (NCAI).
8. 8. Increase flexibility for Tribal employment and training services to facilitate addressing individually the needs of a wide variety of people on welfare, those transitioning off welfare, and those at risk of enrolling (NCAI).
9. 9. Allow the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with Tribes, to develop more appropriate reporting requirements for Tribal TANF Programs (NCAI).
10. 10. Allow Tribes to receive direct funding under Title XX (Social Services Block Grant), Food Stamps, and title IV-E Foster Care Assistance (NCAI).
11. 11. Allow Tribes to define their service areas and service populations (NCAI).
12. 12. Create and adequately fund an employment and training program to be run by Tribes and based on a government-to-government relationship (NCAI).
13. 13. Give states discretion in the definition of "work activities" and "work preparation" (NCAI)
14. 14. Create a separate TANF Block Grant for Tribal governments with 100 percent federal funds and no state MOE requirement (APHSA).
15. 15. Provide Tribes with funding for secondary education (NCAI).
16. 16. Allow Tribes to determine eligibility for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other key programs (NCAI).
17. 17. Reduce below 50 percent the on-Reservation unemployment rate required before residents can be exempted from time limits and revise the requirement for statistical justification of the unemployment rate to fit actual data collection practices (UDIA).
18. 18. Modify the provision related to unemployment rate-driven exemptions from time limits so that it functions effectively for "checkerboarded" Reservations (UDIA).

1. 1. Reward states for providing families with some combination of cash rewards and in-kind supports for mandated work (Duncan & Chase-Lansdale)
2. 2. Exert deliberate and aggressive efforts to create after-school and community programs that provide supervision and mentoring for pre-adolescent and adolescent children (Dunan & Chase-Lansdale).
3. 3. Ensure that policies do not discourage fathers from co-residing or in other ways spending time with and providing financial support to their children (Duncan & Chase-Lansdale).
4. 4. Focus on the provision of a collection of diverse programs to address the equally diverse needs of children of different ages and in different family circumstances, not on one specific program that will purport to benefit all children in welfare families (Duncan & Chase-Lansdale).

Individual Affiliations

Berlin, Gordon                 Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
Blank, Rebecca                University of Michigan, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Bloom, Dan                      Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
Chase-Lansdale, Lindsay  Northwestern University
Duncan, Greg                   Northwestern University
Haskins, Ron                    Formerly Staff Director of the House Committee on Ways and Means
Loprest, Pamela               The Urban Institute
Mead, Lawrence              New York University, Department of Politics
Michalopoulos, Charles    Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
Pavetti, LaDonna              Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Primus, Wendell                Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Schmidt, Lucie                  University of Michigan, Department of Economics
Zedlewski, Sheila              The Urban Institute
 

C:\UREAPTANFpropls.htm