IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/povpop/v9y2017i1p28-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The TANF Resources Problem

Author

Listed:
  • David Meni
  • Michael Wiseman

Abstract

The year 2016 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Whereas AFDC was based on an open‐ended matching grant, TANF is funded with a block grant from the federal government and “maintenance of effort” (MOE) obligations for states, which were generally set at 75 percent of nominal expenditures in the mid‐1990s. This article looks at trends in TANF funding compared to trends in child poverty. We include a more comprehensive poverty measure and adjustments for interstate variation in prices. Over the past decade, inequality in state resources per poor child has increased. The disparities are great, making application of uniform TANF work participation standards to all states without adjustment for variation in resources questionable. The article concludes with an exploration of the connection between TANF resources and state fiscal capacity and a discussion of options for reform.

Suggested Citation

  • David Meni & Michael Wiseman, 2017. "The TANF Resources Problem," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 28-41, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:28-41
    DOI: 10.1002/pop4.171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pop4.171
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pop4.171?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bettina Aten & Eric Figueroa & Troy Martin & Trudi Renwick (Census), 2014. "Supplemental Poverty Measure: A Comparison of Geographic Adjustments with Regional Price Parities vs. Median Rents from the American Community Survey," BEA Working Papers 0111, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Trudi J. Renwick & Eric B. Figueroa & Bettina H. Aten, 2017. "Supplemental Poverty Measure: A Comparison of Geographic Adjustments with Regional Price Parities vs. Median Rents from the American Community Survey: An Update," BEA Working Papers 0141, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    2. Gaia Bertarelli & Luigi Biggeri & Caterina Giusti & Stefano Marchetti & Monica Pratesi, 2020. "Intra-Country comparisons of Poverty Rate," Discussion Papers 2020/260, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Geloso, Vincent & Msaid, Youcef, 2018. "Adjusting Inequalities for Regional Price Parities: Importance and Implications," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(4), February.
    4. John A. Bishop & Jonathan M. Lee & Lester A. Zeager, 2017. "Incorporating spatial price adjustments in U.S. public policy analysis," Working Papers 438, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. John A. Bishop & Jonathan Lee & Lester A. Zeager, 2017. "Improving the Supplemental Poverty Measure: Two proposals," Working Papers 429, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:28-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1944-2858 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.