TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE TO NEEDY FAMILIES (TANF)
This research paper discusses the historical origins, impact and success or failure of the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program enacted into law in 1996.
TANF is a keystone of the welfare reform legislation passed by a Republican majority in Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 23, 1996. TANF replaced and represents a radical departure from, the Aid to Families with Dependent Families (AFDC) portion of federally financed welfare assistance to the poor. TANF consists of block grants of fixed amounts of federal funds to the states which are free to provide welfare assistance to the poor on such terms as they individually see fit, subject to only to constitutional requirements and federal guidelines. The aim of the latter is to reduce welfare rolls and associated costs by imposing time and other limitations on the availability of welfare benefits and by encouraging the transition of recipients from welfare to work. In its first three years of operation, TANF has succeeded in its goal of reducing the number of families dependent on welfare, but its long term success is dependent on the performance of the economy and the willingness and ability of the states to discharge the burdens transferred to them by the federal government. TANF is no solution to the problem of structural poverty in the United States and may aggravate it.
Federal relief was originally intended as a temporary measure designed to alleviate the suffering caused by the economic dislocation produced by the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt said at the time he introduced the Federal Relief Act in 1935 that "continued dependence on relief induces spiritual and moral degeneration." Primary reliance was on make work jobs as a source of income. AFDC was added as supplementary relief for families where the principal breadwinner was dead, absent or disable...