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The awardees are Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Illinois and Michigan. Each will receive $20 million. Under the 1996 law, a total of $100 million will be available annually. This is the second award for Alabama, the District of Columbia and Michigan.

"Among the priorities of the 1996 welfare reform law were promoting parental responsibility and encouraging two-parent families," said Secretary Shalala. "I'm very pleased to award these bonuses as an incentive to advance these important family goals."

Under the law, the annual bonuses are to be awarded to as many as five states with the largest reduction in the proportion of out-of-wedlock births to total births. HHS compiles the statistics reported by states and compares the proportion for the most recent two-year period to that for the preceding two-year period. For this year's bonuses, rankings were based on birth statistics from 1995 and 1996 compared to 1997 and 1998. The top five states become potentially eligible for the bonuses. In order to receive the bonuses, the five states must then also show a decrease in their abortion rate between the most recent year and 1995, where the abortion rate is measured as the number of abortions divided by the number of births.

The reductions achieved by today's bonus awardees were: District of Columbia, 4.13 percent; Arizona, 1.38 percent; Michigan 1.34 percent; Alabama, 0.29 percent and Illinois 0.02 percent.

More evidence is still needed to fully understand the range of factors contributing to the decrease in the proportion of out-of-wedlock births in these particular states. Two of the four years covered under this bonus predate the enactment of the welfare reform law in August 1996, which required all states to develop strategies and goals for reducing out-of-wedlock births as part of their state welfare reform plans. However, even before enactment of the 1996 law, some states began encouraging parental responsibility under the welfare reform waivers that the Clinton-Gore administration granted to 43 states. States have also initiated teen pregnancy prevention programs that have helped contribute to reducing teen birth rates. Last month, HHS announced that teen birth rates continued to drop in 1999, down 20 percent from the most recent high in 1991 and reaching the lowest rate in the 60 years data have been recorded. HHS expects that the data reflected in future award years may reflect the increasingly focused efforts of the states as they have an opportunity to implement new or expanded programs to compete for the bonus.

"Reducing out-of-wedlock births is a significant way to reduce the risk of welfare dependency," said Olivia A. Golden HHS assistant secretary for children and families. "We look forward to continued results of state efforts to use the flexibility and resources provided by welfare reform."

This month, HHS issued the final regulation on the welfare high performance bonus that includes a new measure on family formation and stability. States will have the opportunity to compete for a financial award on achieving the largest increase in the number of children in two-parent married families.

The full list of states and the percentage change in out-of-wedlock birth rates is available on the World Wide Web at: www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/oow00sts.htm.

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