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Administration for Children and Families US Department of Health and Human Services

Office of Family Assistance

TANF PROGRAM POLICY QUESTIONS and ANSWERS
(Includes new Items on the TANF Interim Final Rules)

Index

 

Caseload Reduction Credit Reports

  1. Missing information on denials and closures
  2. Bundling of eligibility change factors
  3. Administrative changes
  4. Due date for report (see archives)
  5. SSP caseload adjustments
  6. Effect of incomplete SSP-MOE reporting

Child-Only Cases

  1. Converting cases as they reach time limit

Countable Income

  1. Crime victim payments
  2. Is there a provision in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 that disregards or excludes tax rebates from consideration as income and resources for TANF eligibility determination purposes?

Definition of Assistance

  1. Benefits and services like medical and substance abuse
  2. Definition of employment
  3. Foster care payments
  4. Earned income disregards
  5. Wage subsidies
  6. Child support assignment and retained support
  7. Incentives and bonuses
  8. Work supports for employed families
  9. Period for determining whether family is employed
  10. Receipt of loans

Domestic Violence Waivers

  1. Service plans
  2. Stopping the clock

Drug Convictions

  1. Amoung States which have chosen to opt out of the TANF ban on convicted drug offenders, have any States done this administratively - - via a governor's Executive Order of State Regulation?

Hours of Participation

  1. Holidays
Top

Immigrants

  1. Effect of five-year bar on individuals who were not qualified aliens at the date of enactment
  2. Relevance of the definition of assistance for the five-year bar
  3. New Does application of section 525 of Division G of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-161) regarding eligibility of Iraqi and Afghan special immigrants for a Federal TANF public benefit end on September 30, 2008?  (See TANF Program Instruction TANF-ACF-PI-2008-01, dated February 21, 2008.)
  4. NewWhen does the count begin for the five-year bar, once the applicable 6-or-8 month exemption period expires for the Iraqi and Afghan special immigrants (See TANF Program Instruction TANF-ACF-PI-2008-01, dated February 21, 2008)?

 

Income Eligibility and Verification System (IEVS)

  1. Relevance of the definition of assistance
  2. Recipients of State-funded benefits only
  3. Benefits provided regardless of income or citizenship or alienage status

Individual Development Accounts (IDA's)

  1. Contributions from tax refunds and EITC's
  2. Use of Federal TANF funds to match Assets for Independence accounts
  3. Use of MOE funds to match Assets for Independence accounts
  4. Contributions in excess of Assets for Independence requirements
  5. Using IDA to purchase cars
  6. Eligibility to participate

Noncustodial Parents

  1. Benefits to residents of another State

Penalty Process

  1. Timing of penalty assessment
  2. Table of regulatory citations, primary method of determining penalty liability, and penalty amounts
  3. Table showing availability of reasonable cause and corrective compliance
  4. Significance of Q's & A's as policy guidance

Reporting Deadlines

  1. Y2K extensions
  2. Annual report deadline
Top

State Plans

  1. Submittal requirements for plans due December 31, 1999 (see archives)
  2. Submittal requirements for four States with plans submitted in 1998 (see archives)
  3. Plan amendment deadline
  4. Plan content requirement
  5. TANF plan requirements under a WIA unified plan
Time Limits
  1. Stopping the clock for victims of domestic violence
  2. Two-parent families with one exempt parent
  3. Reporting of two-parent families with one exempt parent
  4. Treatment of families receiving no payment
  5. Repayments of assistance
  6. Is an individual required to have reached their 60-month limit before requesting a hardship extension? Is there a way to “suspend” the clock if this individual is in residential alcohol and drug treatment?

Use of Funds

  1. Services for the non-needy
  2. Case management re accessing SSI benefits
  3. Foster care by non-relatives
  4. Payment rates for grandfathered activities
  5. Legal guardians
  6. Adoption assistance
  7. Audits
  8. Funding of CCDF program activities above the 30% cap on transfers
  9. Return of CCDF transfers
  10. Summer youth employment
  11. Digital divide activities
  12. Status of the Handbook of Public Assistance
  13. Treatment of staff training costs
  14. Treatment of SCHIP outreach and Food Stamp informational activities
  15. Food Stamp and Medicaid administrative costs
  16. Timeframes for filing claims
  17. Expenditures related to goals three and four
  18. Federal funds for health insurance coverage
  19. Legal representation for SSI benefits
  20. Resolving legal problems
  21. Debt and credit problems
  22. Supplementing UI benefits
  23. Rent subsidies
  24. Juvenile justice services under the grandfathering provision
  25. Period for determining whether family is ready
  26. Redetermining whether family is needy
  27. Programs to assist families in purchasing a home
  28. Purchase of multi-family buildings
  29. Deferred payment loans to developers
  30. Assistance to non-needy families
  31. Language services to those with limited English proficiency
  32. May a State automatically continue the emergency assistance (EA) and/or services it has provided pursuant to the grandfathering provision in section 404(a)(2) of the Social Security Act (Act) once the initial 12 month period has expired?
  33. Can a county offer family planning services, funded by TANF, to a childless couple under TANF purpose 4?
  34. newCan State or Tribal Federal TANF funds be used to purchase tools and building materials in order to support a training program that will prepare needy TANF recipients for jobs in the “construction trades” such as carpenter, electrician, plumber, etc.?

Welfare Reform Waivers

  1. Transition after waiver period
  2. Scope of certifications of inconsistencies
  3. Access to certifications
  4. Treatment of two-parent families
  5. Waiver of DRA statutory requirements

Work Penalty Amounts

  1. Effects of corrective compliance and reasonable cause on subsequent-year penalties

Archives

Caseload Reduction Credit Reports

  1. Due date for report

State Plans

  1. Submittal requirements for plans due December 31, 1999
  2. Submittal requirements for four States with plans submitted in 1998

Top

STATE AND TRIBAL INTERACTIONS

Maintenance-of-Effort

  1. Basic program and financial requirements

  2. Restrictions on use of MOE funds

    3.
  3. Principles that apply when Tribes receive MOE funds from more than one State

TANF REPORTING QUESTIONS

 

General Data Questions
  1. First reporting month for applicants paid back to date of application
  2. Cases erroneously paid assistance

TANF Data Report (TDR) -- Section One

  1. Coding of new applicants
  2. Number of family members
  3. Family types for work participation
  4. Subsidized housing definitions
  5. Amount of food stamp assistance
  6. Amount of child care assistance
  7. Definition of cash resources
  8. Amount of cash and cash equivalents
  9. Tracking of employed and nonemployed families
  10. Relationship between data elements 17 and 22
  11. Receipt of child care under TANF and a separate State program
  12. Family-paid child care
  13. Reporting of transportation assistance
  14. Estimates of the amount of transportation assistance
  15. Reductions in assistance due to sanctions
  16. Definition of a reduction in assistance
  17. Treatment of reductions in transportation allowances under element 26.c.i
  18. Treatment of reductions in transportation allowances under element 26.c.v
  19. Coding of waiver status in non-waiver States
  20. New child-only cases
  21. Coding of family affiliation for noncustodial parents
  22. Coding of affiliation for alien sponsors
  23. Unknown SSN's
  24. Race/Ethnicity Codes for Hispanics and Latinos
  25. Reporting of disability benefits
  26. BENDEX cases
  27. Dependents of disabled wage-earners
  28. Disabled adult children
  29. SSI supplements
  30. Definition of family for element #39
  31. Codes for aliens
  32. Cases with expired time limits, but receiving extensions
  33. Months remaining in States with no time limits
  34. Remaining months for exempt individuals
  35. Status in current month where State has no time limits
  36. Work participation status--exemption for child under 12 months
  37. Treatment of sanction cases
  38. Exempt participants
  39. Participating mandatory participants
  40. Assessing adequacy of hours for two-parent cases under element 48
  41. Coding of waiver cases
  42. Determining hours of participation
  43. Education hours
  44. Waiver hours in a non-waiver State
  45. Public assistance as unearned income
  46. EITC reporting
  47. Rental assistance as unearned income
  48. Reporting of Social Security and RSDI benefits
  49. SSN's for unborn and newly-born children
  50. Minor parents
  51. Disregarded child care
  52. Payments that combine assistance and non-assistance
  53. Recoupments
  54. Income disregards
  55. Non-custodial parents not receiving assistance
  56. Families with infants included in the work participation rate
  57. Supplemental State payments
  58. IDA contributions
  59. SSA income received by children of deceased parent
Top

TANF Data Report (TDR) -- Section Two

  1. Closed cases
  2. Closures due to earnings and employment
  3. Closures related to moves to Tribal programs

TANF Data Report (TDR) -- Section Three

  1. Month for reporting births
  2. Estimates based on prior month
  3. Definitions of out-of-wedlock and marital status
Top SSP-MOE Data Report
  1. Effect of incomplete reporting on caseload reduction credit

Work Participation Rate Questions

  1. Maximum two-parent rates
  2. Required hours for two-parent cases
  3. Including two-parent cases in all-families rate
  4. Disabled-parent cases
  5. Sample two-parent case situations
  6. Generation of participation rate tables
  7. Cases exempt with child under one
  8. Cases with unrelated adults
  9. Duplicate case closure reporting
  10. Reporting on State programs not funded by MOE
  11. Look-back period for sanction cases
  12. Sanction cases that were previously not excluded from participation rates
  13. Work participation standards that apply when a State elects to include
    Tribal TANF and NEW families in the work participation rate
  14. newChange in circumstance

Noncustodial Parent Reporting

  1. Situations when reporting is required
  2. Noncustodial parents who are members of other assistance units
  3. Missing data
  4. Reporting for cases not receiving "assistance"
  5. Reporting the number of noncustodial parents participating in work activities

Top

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