The 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was the largest federal change in welfare policy in decades. The sweeping federal changes included replacing the old cash assistance program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, making assistance temporary through a five-year time limit on federal benefit receipt, changing state funding to a block grant, increasing state program rule flexibility, and enhancing the emphasis on work. Because these changes were so fundamental, there is great need to understand their impact, particularly on the eve of the 5-year reauthorization of the act.