A Texas Public Policy Foundation report argues that Texas spends a negligible share of its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds on promoting two-parent family stability, one of the program’s four federal purposes.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federal block grant program that allocates money to states for cash assistance and services for low-income families with minor children.
TANF’s four purposes are to:
- provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or homes of relatives;
- end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;
- prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and
- encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families (PRWORA 1996/110 Stat. 2113).
TPPF’s Noah Torres and Hannah Bruck identified ways they believe TANF needs to be reoriented to better serve its four purposes.
Purpose 4 of TANF is to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
Yet, Torres and Bruck wrote that the state spends a “negligible percentage of all TANF money” on Purpose 4 “despite the existence of substantial roll-over monies and the critical importance of families for the well-being of both individuals and the state.”
Citing a 2022 state audit, Torres and Bruck noted that the Health and Human Services Commission did not allocate the mandatory minimum of one percent of TANF funds to the Healthy Marriage Development Program.
Instead of the required minimum of more than $4.8 million, HHSC allotted the program $89,911, according to the audit, which reviewed fiscal years 2018 through 2021.
The lack of funding to support Purpose 4 suggests a “possible underinvestment or failure to prioritize two-parent family structures via human services support,” wrote Torres and Bruck.
They recommended that the Legislature develop meaningful programs for Purpose 4 and that the state tap into its large pool of rollover TANF dollars to fund them.
The report also discussed TANF’s imbalanced funding.
Four state agencies receive federal TANF funds: HHSC, the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
DFPS received about 71 percent of TANF funds during the 2018-2021 audit.
Torres and Bruck suggested that the heavy DFPS allotment indicates “structural reorientation of TANF away from its core purpose of promoting work and self-sufficiency, toward sustaining child welfare systems.”
They also noted that TWC’s development and services are most closely aligned with the TANF objective of promoting work and self-sufficiency, yet it receives only 17 percent of funds.
HHSC is the federally recognized “cognizant agency,” or lead agency, for TANF in Texas. But the report argues that rather than leading, HHSC operates as one of four agencies “on an equal plane, resulting in reporting failures, programmatic miscalculations, undefined inter-agency standards, and discordant inter-agency coordination.”
“‘There is no single agency that provides training, monitoring, and strategic visioning for Texas’ TANF funding and MOE requirements’ (SAO, 2022, p. 39),” noted Torres and Bruck.
The report also highlighted TEA’s outsized role. Although the agency receives less than 1 percent of TANF funds, its spending makes up more than 85 percent of the state’s TANF maintenance-of-effort spending, the state funds Texas must spend to receive the federal grant. Most of that spending goes to prekindergarten.
“Deficiencies suggest that HHSC functions more as a fiscal intermediary than as a strategic administrator, which limits the state’s ability to align TANF expenditures with measurable outcomes such as employment, family stability, or reduced dependency,” wrote Torres and Bruck.
HHSC is currently under sunset review by the legislature and has submitted its self-evaluation, including TANF information.
Torres and Bruck recommended that HHSC, with input from the other three agencies, establish rules defining its role as the lead agency to address confusion over TANF rules and how assistance programs are categorized.
They also suggested the Legislature require long-term tracking of TANF recipient outcomes, such as earnings, job stability, or retention to improve TANF programs.
Torres and Bruck concluded that, with policy changes, TANF could be an essential tool for Texas, citing its emphasis on family and work as “two essential elements to human wellbeing and flourishing.”
