What is TANF? TANF is an acronym for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; it is a program that provides cash assistance and supportive services to assist families with children under the age of eighteen, helping them achieve economic self-sufficiency. TANF began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This cash benefit is often referred to simply as "welfare" (Wikipedia, 2015).
TANF was created by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act instituted under President Bill Clinton in 1996. The Act provides temporary financial assistance
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while aiming to get people off of that assistance, primarily through employment. There is a maximum of 60 months of benefits within one's lifetime, but some states have instituted shorter periods. The reform granted states wide discretion of how to distribute TANF entitlements. States also have the authority to eliminate payments to recipient’s altogether. Under the new act, TANF recipients are required to find a job within 24 months of receiving aid. In enforcing the 60-month time limit, some states place limits on the adult portion of the assistance only, while still aiding the otherwise eligible children in the household (Wikipedia, 2015). REQUIREMENTS: In order to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families there are a number of requirements that are available that you have to abide by or else it will be impossible to receive assistance.
Below are just a few of the requirements:
• Age: A child must be less than 18 years of age (19 years if s/he is a full-time student).
• Application for other benefits: A TANF applicant/recipient must apply for and accept other benefits (Unemployment Compensation, Workman’s Compensation, Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI), Child Support, etc) for which s/he may be
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eligible. • School Attendance: All children ages 6 through 17 who have not graduated from high school or who have not received a certificate of high school equivalency must attend school and have satisfactory attendance. • Income: An assistance unit’s countable, net income must be below certain established limits that are adjusted for the number of persons in the AU. A family must meet the financial criteria to receive TANF. For example, a family of three (mother and two children) must have a gross income below $784 a month and countable assets of less than $1,000. • Work Requirement: All adult recipients have a work requirement, and are required to participate in work activities and training for at least 30 hours weekly. These work activities help recipients gain the experience needed to find a job and become self-sufficient. Social Problem with TANF The largest problem associated with TANF is that its own rules hold recipients back from gaining education due to the lack of time or reason to get a better job.
The “catch-22” of in TANF leads to a sense of helplessness and a lack of empowerment. There are two cases where there have been issues in the department of trying to either find a job or go back to school or maybe even consider both as an option. It had not always been that hard for someone to go to work and attend school. One case spoke about how one lady who felt that she could do better than the job she had been at for some time. She stated that even though she is doing better than most that even after paying bills and paying for school she has no money left for her and her young daughter. Around 1995-96, 650,000 of recipients were enrolled in postsecondary education. That was only because the schools that some of the recipients were attending recorded the required information while some did not. According to Charles Price, in 2005 the 650,000 back in ’95-’96 has made a major decline (M, F,
2015. Another case was a woman who had been off crack cocaine for eighteen months and now suffers from depression. She feels like everything is stressful to her and she think the current system is “cruel” by forcing to get a job and take care of herself. Recipients suffering from substance abuse is not uncommon with TANF. In 2009 a study was done by Brown and Montoya and it was found that 547 of TANF recipients that were used in the study that 30% of them were heavy drug users. They based the subjects’ drug usage on a scale from 0-7, with zero being no history of using that particular drug and seven means the subject abused that drug about twenty-eight times per week. The actual number of doses per week among users was fourteen (M F, 2015). Personally, I think everyone should get a chance whether its helps them or is a crutch simply because everyone needs that push to help them get on the right path. Not everyone has the right mindset that can help them make the best of themselves. I do not agree with some of the qualifications that come with TANF however, they are only to better the recipients. For example, I myself cannot manage school and work at the same time so right now I am just focusing on school and work will come afterwards. What they are doing by cutting the people who receive benefits with TANF I don’t feel that is fair, just like one of the cases I shared with you she was working and doing good with managing school also but still was not able to have any money left to support her and her child. I think that they should do well by the ones who are actually trying and doing better than they were that way that person will strive harder to make sure they are good
It seems like the Welfare system treats its recipients with disrespect and shame to discourage them from joining the system. The people who made and run Welfare in the 1990s made Welfare into a blame game and forces recipients to solely blame themselves for their poverty. The moral prescriptions in individually getting rid of poverty according to TANF are the Work Plan/Family Plan. The focuses on work and family are contradictory because of how little time there is to get both goals done and each goal perpetuates the idea that it is the most important part of ending poverty. It seems like Welfare is more about getting people off of Welfare than eradicating poverty. There is a difference in the goals and that is reflected in how the recipients are treated and how Welfare is run.
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
“Michelle earned six small scholarships, two of which are renewable for next year, and took out a federal loan. She also works 16 hours a week in the financial – aid office at the university.” (61). With Wallechinsky providing Michelle and her mother’s story it helps many relate or agree of the high payment for our education. Immigrants come to the U.S hoping for an education and opportunities. To have opportunities, for example jobs, a family, and social mobility an education is needed. Our education is the key to many of our dreams but on the other hand it’s one of the main things holding many back. That doesn’t mean that all people have given up for example Wallechinsky states, “Middle class respondents surveyed say they take responsibility for their own financial destiny and believe that they will succeed or fail based on their own efforts. Still, many are downsizing their dreams” (61). This states that many have positive mindsets that believe that the effort and determination to work is the reason for their financial status. But by them downgrading their dreams it shows how our effort and hard work isn’t going to make wages get higher. However, David Wallechinsky has a point to question the existent of the American Dream as many blame
Welfare is a federally funded program that provides health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing that is under the umbrella of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Per Welfare Information, eligibility is determined by net income, family size, and any crisis situation such as: pregnancy, homelessness, and unemployment. TANF also requires the recipient to obtain employment within two years of receiving help (2014). A majority of the monies that support Welfare come from taxes paid by the working class and donations from private companie...
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Administration for children and families: about TANF. Retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/tanf/about.html
I feel that TANF is a useful program, because it allows people to have access to things that they would not generally have. It also allows for the opportunity to receive actual help in bettering other people’s lives. I wish more programs like this existed and offered not only monetary support, but also childcare and education assistance. If more programs like TANF existed there would be more opportunity to better one’s self and less of a sense of being trapped in a poor economic condition.
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program was developed to help needy families become self-sufficient.¹ The TANF program was created by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996.² TANF was created by The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) out of the preexisting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which itself was created by Congress in 1935 as part of the Social Security Act.² There were some notable differences between the PRWORA and the TANF when it was created, the most noted differences were that the TANF allowed states to use TANF dollars to support child care, for job search support, social services,etc. and there were no requirements on how much could be spent on cash aid directly.² Also, the entitlement aspect of the PRWORA ended and states were not required to serve all eligible families/individuals.²
Welfare assistance itself is provided from monies managed by a federally funded program that provides health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment benefits, cash aid, and housing to citizens in need. It is categorized the governmental umbrella of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). According to Welfare Information, eligibility is determined by net income, family size, and any crisis situation such as: pregnancy, homelessness, or unemployment (2014). TANF also requires the recipient to obtain employment within two years of rec...
this hurts single-parent families who are trying to go back to college to get a degree to get
TANF and AFDC differ in many ways: 1) TANF provides a block grant to individual states, 2) there is no longer a guarantee of cash assistant to all eligible individuals, 3) recipients may receive benefits for no more than five years over a life time, 4) recipients must adhere to work requirement to receive benefits, and 5) current and future legal immigrants are denied benefits until citizenship (O’Campo & Rojas-Smith 421). The fact that TANF is restricted for a maximum of five years has adverse consequences for the needy. Five years is often too short for recipients to gain independence.
“The minimum employment age for employment in industrial, agricultural, or commercial companies is 15. The minimum age for apprenticeships is 14. There is no minimum age restriction for work in domestic service and there are no legal penalties for employing children in domestic labor unless the nature or condition of domestic service harms their health, safety, or morals.”
Karen Bridget Murray’s article, “Governing ‘Unwed Mothers’ in Toronto at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”, is a valuable reference into the struggles and triumphs of social welfare for unwed mothers. For me the article highlighted how government ideologies influence social welfare, how important the change from religious reformers practices to social work was and finally how appalling it is that the struggles and barriers these women faced are still relevant to single mothers today.
Welfare is a public assistance program that provides at least a minimum amount of economic security to people whose incomes are insufficient to maintain an adequate standard of living. These programs generally include such benefits as financial aid to individuals, subsidized medical care, and stamps that are used to purchase food. The modern U.S. welfare system dates back to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. During the worst parts of the Depression, about one-fourth of the labor force was without work. More than two-thirds of all households would have been considered poor by today's standards. With a majority of the capable adult population experiencing severe financial misfortune, many Americans turned to the government for answers. In response, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt led a social and economic reform movement attacking the Depression. Part of his newly enacted “New Deal” program was the Social Security Act, enacted by Congress in 1935. This act and established a number of social welfare programs, each designed to provide support for different segments of the population.
Millions of people in the United States today are on some type of public assistance. Some Americans are on Medicare, which provides to the people who cannot afford private health insurance and for those 65 or older. Another type of public assistance is TANF, which many families are on; an organization that helps needy families with some grants and guidance provided by the government. Some states are taking all obligatory measurements to make sure that the taxpayers’ money for public assistance is being used properly by those people who actually need the help and not to buy drugs and alcohol. These public restrictions are put in place, so the people who actually need the help to survive and who wish to live their lives with the American dream in mind, may have a chance.
I didn’t realize that the social factor was actually a big deal. People that only have a high school degree are eight times more likely to depend on public assistance programs unlike college graduates. I think that not depending on public assistance is good. We do not need everyone living off of welfare. We need more people getting a college degree and wanting to work as well. “For every female high school student who goes on to attend college, society saves $48,600 over her lifetime. For every African-American male who goes on to finish college instead of dropping out of high school, society saves $294,000” (Top 10…). Since the female decided to attend college she is getting a better education and won’t be living on public assistance and the society saves a lot of money. If everyone went to college the society could save so much more money.