The Welfare Rules Databook: State Policies as of July 2001

Assessing the New Federalism Discussion Paper No. 04-07

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Introduction and Background

This publication, The Welfare Rules Databook, provides tables containing key Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies for each state as of July 2001, as well as longitudinal tables describing selected state policies from 1996 through 2001. The tables are based on the information in the Welfare Rules Database (WRD), a publicly available, online database originally developed under the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project.

The Databook is divided into five groups of tables: Initial Eligibility; Benefits; Requirements; Ongoing Eligibility; and Policies across Time, 1996-2001. Each chapter begins with an overview of the policies, followed by details relating to specific tables.

The Databook provides a summary of the detailed information in the WRD. Users interested in a greater level of detail are encouraged to use the full database, available at http://anfdata.urban.org/wrd. This site includes a point-and-click interface, as well as documentation.

The following sections discuss the background and structure of the WRD, and the contents and structure of the tables in this book.

The Welfare Rules Database

The Welfare Rules Database is a comprehensive, sophisticated resource for comparing cash assistance programs across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, researching changes across time in cash assistance rules within a single state, or determining the rules governing cash assistance in one state at a point in time. The WRD is longitudinal, and currently provides information on state Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and TANF policies from 1996 through 2001. The WRD was initially developed to meet the needs of researchers under the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project and was made publicly available in August 1999. The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (DHHS/ACF) is currently funding the maintenance and development of the WRD.

The Development of the WRD

The WRD was developed in response to the increasing difficulty since the early 1990s of tracking how states operate their cash assistance programs for needy families. Under AFDC, the structure of eligibility and benefit computation was mostly determined at the federal level. States were allowed to set certain policies—such as the standards used to establish eligibility and benefits, and the rules for two-parent families—but those choices were detailed in the State Plans they submitted to the DHHS/ACF, and in annual reports issued by DHHS/ACF summarizing the State Plans. In the early to mid-1990s, as more states received waivers to experiment with their welfare rules, it became increasingly difficult to research states' policies. The Waiver Terms and Conditions agreed to by the state and the federal government often did not provide full implementation details, and the implementation schedules often changed after the agreement was reached. The August 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), replacing AFDC with the TANF block grant, further increased both the degree of variation across state programs and the difficulty of tracking program rules.

Currently, states are periodically required to submit to the federal government TANF State Plans that provide an overview of their choices under the block grant. However, the Plans' level of detail varies considerably across states and, generally, they offer insufficient information to completely understand the details of eligibility, benefit computation, and client requirements. Further, although the states are expected to notify the federal government if any of their choices change after the submission of a Plan, they are not required to do so.

The WRD was developed to provide a source of detailed information about states' TANF policies, going beyond the level of detail in most states' official State Plans and capturing changes in policies that occur between the submission of those Plans. The WRD focuses on cash assistance policies and some closely tied transitional benefits. Its main focus is on federally funded policies; however, some information on policies provided under state-separate funding is included when the state considers those benefits part of the same basic program and therefore includes them in the caseworker manual. Thus, benefits paid to two-parent units and certain immigrant units are included, even when they do not use federal funds. The WRD does not attempt to capture other uses of federal TANF funds (such as state earned income tax credits, child care programs, etc).

Contents of the WRD

The WRD provides detailed information on a range of policy topics. These topics are currently organized into 29 categories that together describe most of the significant dimensions of state policies. While the categories may be ordered in a variety of ways, it is useful to consider the rules in the sequence in which individuals seeking and receiving assistance will likely encounter them. The 29 categories are listed below, organized into five sections, beginning with initial eligibility.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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