U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America	Frequent Questions Search

Font Size     Print     Download Reader

THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1996 MAKING WELFARE A TRANSITION TO WORK

PRWORA established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. It includes a wide range of provisions designed to encourage and support efforts by states to help individuals make the transition from welfare to work. These provisions include:

Work requirements. Under PRWORA, recipients must work when determined work ready or after two years on assistance, with few exceptions. Since fiscal year 2002, states are required to have 50 percent of all families engaged in a work activity for a minimum of 30 hours per week, and 90 percent of two-parent families engaged in a work activity for at least 35 hours per week. The participation rate requirement is reduced by the caseload reduction in the prior year, excluding reductions due to Federal law or State changes in eligibility. In fiscal year 2004, all states, except Guam met the overall participation rate for all families and 20 of the 25 states that were subject to the two-parent rate met the goal.

Child care support for families transitioning into jobs. Since the enactment of PRWORA, federal funds totaling more than $69 billion have supported the child care needs of low-income working families and families transitioning from welfare to work. These funds include both the mandatory and discretionary portions of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), as well as funds made available for child care through the TANF block grant and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) programs. During the same time period, states have provided more than $24 billion through CCDF and TANF as a part of their commitment to child care. All told, more than $94 billion has been made available over the past ten years to help more parents participate in the workforce. In addition, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 increased federal funding for child care by $1 billion over the next five years. Health care coverage. PRWORA guaranteed that individuals who meet pre-reform welfare-eligibility criteria continue to be eligible to receive Medicaid, including at least six months of transitional Medicaid coverage when they leave welfare for work. In addition, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) provides health insurance coverage for uninsured children, many of whom come from working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private health insurance. More information about the SCHIP program is available at www.insurekidsnow.gov and in HHS' SCHIP fact sheet at www.hhs.gov/news/facts.

Five-year time limit. Families with adult recipients who have received assistance for five cumulative years are ineligible for federally funded cash aid under the welfare reform law. States have the option of setting a shorter time limit. States also are permitted to provide hardship extensions after reaching the federal time limit to 20 percent of their caseload, and states have the option to provide continued support to families that reach the time limit using Social Services Block Grant or state funds.

State maintenance of effort requirements. PRWORA requires states to maintain their own spending on welfare at a level equal to at least 80 percent of fiscal year 1994 levels or 75 percent if they meet the work participation requirements. In addition, states must maintain 100 percent of fiscal year 1994 or fiscal year 1995 spending on child care (whichever is greater) to access additional child care funds beyond their initial allotment. States are spending more per recipient now than in 1994. All states met the minimum spending requirements that applied to them in fiscal year 2004.

STRENGTHENING FAMILIES AND PROMOTING RESPONSIBILITY

Ending dependence and promoting two-parent families. Flexibility under PRWORA extends to providing services to non-custodial parents to ensure that they are able to support their children and have the skills necessary to be better parents. All states may use TANF funding for programs that strengthen and encourage two-parent families. In addition, PRWORA includes grants to help states establish programs that support and facilitate non-custodial parents' visitation with and access to their children.

Teen pregnancy prevention. PRWORA provides $50 million a year in funding for abstinence education activities. This program provides states with grants to support a wide range of innovative abstinence programs for adolescents.

Strong child support enforcement measures. PRWORA includes strong child support enforcement measures. Collections rose to a record high of $21.2 billion in fiscal year 2003. Under PRWORA, each state must operate a child support enforcement program that meets federal requirements to be eligible for TANF block grants.

Streamlined paternity establishment. PRWORA streamlines the legal process for paternity establishment, making it easier and faster to establish paternity. It also expands the voluntary in-hospital paternity establishment program, started in 1993, and requires a state form for voluntary paternity acknowledgment. In addition, the law requires states to publicize the availability and encourage the use of voluntary paternity establishment processes. Welfare recipients who fail to cooperate with paternity establishment will have their monthly cash assistance reduced by at least 25 percent. Paternity establishments were 1.5 million in 2003.

THE DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005

The welfare reform law was reauthorized by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Following are highlights of the changes in the law, which builds on the successes of PRWORA and require states to engage more TANF cases in productive work activities leading to self-sufficieny:

Helping Welfare Recipients Achieve Independence Through Work

Increasing effective work requirements. The caseload reduction credit, which had inadvertently undermined TANF�s work requirements, was recalibrated, replacing the FY 1995 base year with a base year of FY 2005. Without the benefit of a built-up credit, states must place half of all cases with adults and 90 percent of two-parent families in work activities. To the extent that states succed in reducing caseloads, they will receive credit for reductions after FY 2005. Families receiving assistance in separate state programs, who were previously excluded from the participation rates, are also now included.

Promoting work and accountability. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is required to issue regulations to ensure uniform and consistent measurement of work participation rates. This includes defining work activities, establishing uniform methods for reporting hours of work, providing guidelines for the type of documentation needed to verify reported hours of work and determining the circumstances in which �child-only� cases should be included in the rates. States are required to establish and maintain work participation verification procedures reviewed by HHS and are subject to a new penalty of one to five percent for failure to establish or comply with these procedures.

Protecting children and strengthening families

Protecting children continuing historically high child care funding. The Deficit Reduction Act increases the historically high levels of support for child care through the Child Care and Development Fund from $4.8 billion to $5 billion per year.

Improving child support enforcement. Under current law, the government keeps most of the child support paid on behalf of families receiving cash assistance and a substantial portion of past-due child support collections for families that formerly received welfare. The welfare reauthorization provisions made several improvements to the child support enforcement program, including a change that will provide more support directly to families, especially those who have left welfare.

Encouraging healthy marriages and two-parent married families. The Deficit Reduction Act also provides funding of $150 million per year for healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood initiatives. Funds may be used for competitive research and demonstration projects by public and private entities to test promising approaches to encourage health marriages and promote involved, committed and responsible fatherhood. Healthy marriage promotion awards must be used for eight specified activities, including marriage education, marriage skills training, public advertising campaigns, high school education on the value of marriage and marriage mentoring programs. Up to $50 million each year may be used for activities promoting responsible fatherhood, such as counseling, mentoring, marriage education, enhancing relationship skills, parenting and activities to foster economic stability.

More information on the implementation of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 is available at the Web site of the HHS Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov.

###

HHS Home | Questions? | Contacting HHS | Accessibility | Privacy Policy | FOIA | Disclaimers | The White House | USA.gov | Helping America's Youth

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201