News Release

Bush Administration Releases Interim Final Regulation Implementing The Next Phase Of Welfare Reform

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today announced interim final regulations for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to implement statutory changes to the TANF program in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The regulations ensure consistent measurement of work participation rates in state welfare programs.

"These regulations complete what President Bush has called 'the unfinished business of welfare reform,'" Secretary Leavitt said. "We are rebooting the system to help more individuals transition from welfare dependency to work and self-sufficiency."

The new regulations further strengthen work participation requirements by:

• Defining work activities.
• Defining work-eligible individuals to include additional categories of individuals in the calculation of state work participation rates.
• Requiring states to establish and maintain work verification procedures and holding states accountable for compliance with them.

"The Bush Administration believes in supporting people through work instead of welfare dependency," said HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. "These new regulations implement important changes to improve the effectiveness of work programs, because we know that the only way to escape poverty is through work."

Since welfare reform became law in 1996, welfare rolls for families have declined by 57 percent. The most recent caseload numbers show that 1,870,039 families remain on the TANF rolls. The 1996 law stipulated that 50 percent of welfare recipients in state programs must participate in productive work activities, but it also allowed states to reduce the required participation rate by the percentage decline in their caseloads since 1995. With welfare reform's dramatic caseload reductions, many states' work participation requirements were reduced to zero or near zero. In a typical month in FY 2004, nearly 60 percent of adults on the TANF caseload did not participate in any work or work preparation activities.

That is why the Congress passed and President Bush signed a TANF reauthorization bill that recalibrates the caseload reduction credit so that states only receive credit for caseload reductions after FY 2005. The effect of this is that states must engage significantly higher percentages of their caseload in work or work preparation activities. The new law and regulations also add new categories of individuals in the calculation of state work participation rates, including those receiving assistance in separate state programs and certain families in which only children currently receive assistance. The 2005 welfare reform reauthorization maintains the program's overall funding and basic structure and provides $150 million annually for healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood initiatives.

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Last revised: June 28, 2006