Socl/512 - Sociology Urban Poverty and Policy Issues

Major Policy Paper

Temporary Assistance for Needed Families “TANF”

Presented to Dr. Anthony Igiede

In partial fulfillments of SOCL/512

Sociology Urban Poverty and Policy Issues

Shayla D. Robinson

April 28, 2015

        The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families better known as TANF was created under the 1996 Welfare Reform Law. It was brought in to replace in what was called the New Deal program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which was originally known as Aid to Dependent Children and all this came about through the Social Security Act of 1935. It was a grant program that gave different states the opportunity to provide cash assistance to a mother or father to provide care for their child or children being that the other parent was absent from the home, unemployed or dead.

        Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) allows the needy family to receive

benefits for up to five years to provide for their family. The family that receives the benefits must

meet certain requirements. There are several ways TANF should be use, for one it should help

the parent become dependent to not depend strictly on the government and encourage job

searching, also to provide assistance to the families that need help, so they can care for their

children at home, and to help reduce women who are not married from continuing to get

pregnant. In the first years after the Welfare Reform, TANF caseloads dropped, the percentage of

employed single mothers increased drastically, and children living in poverty started to decrease

majorly due to the economy growing. But in 2001 a lot of single mothers suddenly became

unemployed and childhood poverty started to increase again. However, many families were able

to successfully find employment and no longer had to depend on the TANF program anymore.

        Temporary Assistance for Needy Families replaced the New Deal Program of Aid to

families with Dependent Children originally called Aid to Dependent Children that provided

monthly cash benefits to families that were in need who had children in 1992, President Bill

Clinton stated that he would end welfare. When President Clinton said that, he meant that was

recipients that have receive the benefits for two consecutive years in a row would have to start

seeking employment. President Bill Clinton didn’t want a family to get so dependent on welfare

assistance until they wouldn’t want to work, so he allowed them to receive the benefits for two