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The awardees are the District of Columbia, Alabama and Michigan. Each will receive $25 million. This is the third year that these two states and the District of Columbia have received this award.

"These states received these bonuses by reducing out-of-wedlock births, which helps families become self-sufficient and provide bright futures for their children," said Secretary Thompson. "By emphasizing the importance of marriage and family, we can change the culture of poverty into one of responsibility and success."

The welfare reform law of 1996 required all states to develop strategies and goals for reducing out-of-wedlock births. Under the law, the annual bonuses are awarded to as many as five states with the largest reduction in the proportion of out-of-wedlock births to total births. HHS' National Center for Health Statistics compiles the data based on records submitted by the 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 1996 and 1997 compared to 1998 and 1999. Based on these rankings, three states became potentially eligible for the fiscal year 2001 bonuses. In order to receive the bonuses, the top states were required to show a decrease in their abortion rate between the most recent year and 1995. The abortion rate is measured as the number of abortions divided by the number of births.

The reductions in the ratio of out-of-wedlock births achieved by today's bonus awardees were: District of Columbia, 3.976 percent; Alabama, 0.249 percent; and Michigan, 0.009 percent.

"Countless studies demonstrate that children on the average fare better in married households than in any other family setting," said Wade Horn, HHS assistant secretary for children and families. "These awards are yet another way for us to help states encourage marriage and the formation of stable families and to improve the quality of life for children."

Even before the 1996 welfare reform law was enacted, some states began encouraging parental responsibility under welfare reform waivers granted to 43 states. A number of states have implemented a range of programs, including teen pregnancy prevention programs, to reduce out-of-wedlock births.

In July, HHS announced that teen birth rates declined to a record low in 2000. The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the 2000 rate was 22 percent lower than the rate in 1991 when the decline began. Also in July, Secretary Thompson announced more than $17.1 million in new grants to help communities develop and implement abstinence-only education programs in order to continue the downward trend in the teen birth rate.

The full list of states and the percentage change in out-of-wedlock birth rates is available on the World Wide Web at www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/welfare/welfaredata.htm.

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