New regulations to strengthen welfare reform were published in the Federal Register, February 5, 2008. The changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) will help move individuals off the welfare rolls and into the workplace by giving states the flexibility to design their own effective welfare-to-work initiatives.
 
Welfare reform has played a key part in finding work opportunities for families served in Head Start programs. These regulations will help states design their welfare programs to better serve those making the move from welfare to work. In addition, Federal TANF funds may also be used by agencies to provide transportation services. Read more >>>

The new regulations give states flexibility to help families remove barriers to employment by converting the current six-week limit on counting job search and job readiness activities to an hourly equivalent. The also permit states to count participation to baccalaureate or advanced degree programs in vocational educational training, up to the 12-month lifetime limit. In addition, they hold states responsible for documenting all hours they report each month for work participation, while clarifying that daily supervision of participants does not have to involve in-person contact each day.

Since welfare reform became law in 1966, welfare rolls for families have declined by 62 percent, with the most recent caseload numbers showing 1,672,355 families currently on the TANF rolls. The regulations announced in the February 5 Federal Register follow up on an interim rule announced in June 2006 after TANF was reauthorized. The Office of Family Assistance published questions and answers about the final rule implementing changes to the TANF program as required by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-171). The Deficit Reduction Act (Section VII-Subtitle A-TANF) also reauthorizes welfare reform for another five years and requires states to engage more TANF cases in productive work activities leading to self-sufficiency. For more on the Deficit Act >>>

Select here to view the complete final rule of the changes made to TANF which were published in the February 5, 2008 Federal Register.