View Research by Author - Heather Hahn

Publications

A central component of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is its emphasis on work. Adult TANF recipients, with some exceptions, must participate in work activities as a condition of receiving cash benefits. This brief focuses on the federal work requirements and state strategies for meeting them, especially since passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the recession that began in December 2007 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The brief documents the multiple strategies that states use to meet the participation rate requirements.

Federal spending on children's health increased greatly over the past 50 years, although it remained a modest 10 percent of total health spending in 2010. The largest program in the children's health budget, Medicaid, accounted for $74 billion and 85 percent of all federal spending on children's health in 2010. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) included provisions that will increase health insurance coverage for both children and their parents. However, the magnitude of the estimated impact of the ACA on children's coverage depends heavily on the continuation of current Medicaid and CHIP coverage for children.

This report provides a first-time analysis of how the allocation of public resources for children varies by family income. Examining federal expenditures for nearly 100 federal programs in 2009, the report finds that 70 percent of all federal spending on children served the 42 percent of children who are low-income -- living in families with incomes less than twice the federal poverty level. While low-income children received 84 percent of outlays on children, higher-income children received 82 percent of tax reductions benefiting children.

Performance measurement is a tool government can use to improve program performance and address accountability. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, like many federal government programs, requires measurement of program performance to help ensure federal funds are being used to reach stated program goals. Some states have gone beyond federal requirements and added additional performance measures for their state TANF programs, making them useful laboratories for understanding the possibilities and challenges of broader and varied performance measurement in TANF. This study exploits this opportunity by gathering and synthesizing information from a set of states with more innovative performance measurement systems

Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2010, a fifth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.

Kids' Share 2011: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2010, a fifth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends over the past 50 years in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Key findings suggest that the size and composition of expenditures on children have changed considerably, but children have not been a budget priority. Federal expenditures on children in 2010, were 11 percent of the federal budget, slightly higher than in 2009. This increase is temporary, however, with the children's share of the budget expected to shrink to less than 8 percent by the end of the next decade.

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