Federal TANF and State MOE Expenditures Summary by ACF‐196R Spending Category

These pie charts represent each state’s federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and state Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) spending and transfers to the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). As a condition of receiving federal TANF funds, states are required to spend a certain amount of their own funds (MOE) on TANF-allowable categories. Many states spend additional funds above the required amount. Expenditures are grouped into 15 categories for the purposes of these charts, as defined below.

1. Basic Assistance: Cash, payments, vouchers, and other forms of benefits designed to meet a family's ongoing basic needs (i.e., for food, clothing, shelter, utilities, household goods, personal care items, and general incidental expenses). Includes Relative Foster Care Maintenance Payments And Adoption And Guardianship Subsidies.
2. Work, Education, and Training Activities: Subsidized Employment; Education and Training (including secondary education; adult education, GED or equivalent and ESL classes; education directly related to employment; job skills training; education provided as vocational educational training or career and technical education; and post-secondary education); and Additional Work Activities (including costs related to providing work experience and community service activities, job search assistance and job readiness, related services).
3. Child Care (Spent or Transferred): Child Care expenditures for families that need child care to work, participate in work activities or for respite purposes. Also includes funds Transferred to Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Discretionary. A state can transfer up to 30 percent of its block grant to CCDF.
4. Program Management: Administrative Costs (subject to a 15 percent cap); Assessment/Service Provision; and Systems costs related to monitoring and tracking under the program.
5. Refundable Tax Credits: Refundable portions of state or local earned income tax credits (EITC) and other tax credits paid to families.
6. Child Welfare Services (including Authorized Solely Under Prior Law): Family Support/Family Preservation/Reunification Services: community-based services, provided to families involved in the child welfare system that are designed to increase the strength and stability of families so children may remain in or return to their homes; Adoption Services and activities designed to promote and support successful adoptions; Additional Child Welfare Services provided to children and families at risk of being in the child welfare system, or who are involved in the child welfare system; Foster Care Payments (Authorized Solely Under Prior Law); and Child Welfare or Foster Care Services (Authorized Solely Under Prior Law).
7. Pre-Kindergarten/Head Start: Pre-kindergarten or kindergarten education programs (allowable if they do not meet the definition of a “general state expense”), expansion of Head Start programs, or other school readiness programs.
8. Transferred to SSBG (Social Services Block Grant): All funds transferred shall be used only for programs and services to children or their families whose income is less than 200 percent of the income official poverty line. A state can transfer up to 10 percent of its TANF funds to the Social Services Block Grant.
9. Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancy Prevention: Programs that provide sex education or abstinence education and family planning services to individuals, couples, and families in an effort to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
10. Non-Recurrent Short Term Benefits: Short-term benefits to families in the form of cash, vouchers, subsidies, or similar form of payment to deal with a specific crisis situation or episode of need. Includes expenditures such as emergency assistance and diversion payments, emergency housing and short-term homelessness assistance, emergency food aid, short-term utilities payments, burial assistance, clothing allowances, and back-to-school payments.
11. Work Supports & Supportive Services (including Financial Education and Asset Development): Work Supports (e.g. transportation benefits, tools, uniforms, fees to obtain special licenses, bonuses, incentives, and work support allowances,and expenditures for job access); Supportive Services (e.g. domestic violence services, and health, mental health, substance abuse and disability services, housing counseling services, and other family supports); and Financial Education and Asset Development (e.g. programs and initiatives designed to support the development and protection of assets including contributions to Individual Development Accounts, financial education services, tax credit outreach campaigns and tax filing assistance programs, initiatives to support access to mainstream banking, and credit and debt management counseling).
12. Services for Children & Youth (including Home Visiting): Programs designed to support and enrich the development and improve the life-skills and educational attainment of children and youth, including after-school programs, and mentoring or tutoring programs. Also includes Home Visiting Programs, where nurses, social workers, or other professionals/para-professionals provide services to families in their homes.
13. Authorized Solely Under Prior Law: Activities that are not otherwise consistent with the purposes of TANF and/or with the prohibitions in section 408, but are allowable expenditures of federal TANF funds as activities that were in effect on September 30, 1995, or (at the option of the state) August 21, 1996. Includes Juvenile Justice Payments and Services and Emergency Assistance and Services Authorized Solely Under Prior Law. Does not include Foster Care Payments and Child Welfare or Forster Care Services authorized solely under prior law (see Child Welfare Services).
14. Fatherhood and Two-Parent Family Programs: Programs that aim to promote responsible fatherhood and/or encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. For example, activities within these programs may include marriage education, marriage and relationship skills, fatherhood skills programs; parent skills workshops; public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and responsible fatherhood; education regarding how to control aggressive behavior; financial planning seminars; and divorce education and reduction programs.
15. Other: Non-assistance activities that were not included in any of the above categories.