We love it when the Biden administration just out of nowhere solves problems that may not make the nightly news, but that have real impacts on people’s lives, like how last year Health and Human Services fixed a glitch in the design of Obamacare that had kept about a million people from being able to get coverage. No drama, no midnight vigils outside the White House: instead, people at HHS looked at the problem, proposed new administrative rules, and voila, a big headache for some Americans was gone. That’s happened with a lot of small fixes to student loans, too, in addition to the bigger loan forgiveness packages the administration has pursued.
This is what happens when you staff up an administration with smart people who want to solve problems. Today, ProPublica reports on yet another big change that stands to solve a decades-long problem we first learned about back in 2016, closing a huge loophole that allowed states to divert federal antipoverty funds to governors’ pet projects, like promoting abstinence, holding “heathy marriage” classes that did nothing to prevent out-of-wedlock births, funding anti-abortion “clinics” to lie about abortion “risks,” sending middle-class kids to private colleges, and other schemes only tangentially related to helping poor kids. It’s the same loophole that Mississippi officials tried to drive a truck through to divert welfare funds to former sportsball man Brett Favre’s alma mater, for a volleyball palace. That scandal made enough headlines that the administration’s plan to fix the loophole just might get covered beyond policy nerds, even.
At the root of the problem is some vague language around the program that used to be called “welfare” but which was rebranded Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Bill Clinton’s 1996 “Welfare reform” law. TANF normally gave cash assistance to low-income families, to use for basic living expenses. But under the 1986 “reform,” states were allowed to take their TANF block grants and allocate them to other programs that ostensibly assist low-income families with kids. Over the years, while some states still provided cash assistance, others shifted the funds to other budget slots, rationalizing almost any spending as somehow helping poor kids. Mississippi claimed that new volleyball stadium might prevent poverty by encouraging poors to adopt exercise and healthy eating habits, for instance.
ProPublica detailed the widespread abuse of TANF funds in a series of stories in 2021, explaining how Utah’s public assistance rules convinced some families they had to join the LDS church to get help, and how Arizona used TANF funds for child welfare investigations of needy parents — effectively “helping” poor families by breaking them up. Some states didn’t spend the funds at all, simply hoarding parts of their TANF grants.
So yeah, said the Biden folks at the Administration for Children and Families, let’s fix that! The agency has proposed new rules — open for public comment until December 1 — aimed at nudging states to actually use TANF funds to give cash to needy parents, not fill budget holes or punish poor people.
One change will put an end to the scheme Utah used to substitute LDS church funds for welfare, by prohibiting states
from counting charitable giving by private organizations, such as churches and food banks, as “state” spending on welfare, a practice that has allowed legislatures to budget less for programs for low-income families while still claiming to meet federal minimums.
Another new rule will put the kibosh on using TANF to fund child protective services or foster care programs, which are not what TANF is supposed to be for, damn it.
And then there’s the simple matter of making sure that funds for needy families go to needy families, not to pet projects that have little to do with poverty:
The reforms would also redefine the term “needy” to refer only to families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. Currently, some states spend TANF money on programs like college scholarships — or volleyball stadiums — that benefit more affluent people.
Guess the real “Welfare Queens” were the state bureaucrats who robbed poor families to help people who didn’t need it, huh?
But wait, there’s more! Instead of allowing states to write up flimsy rationalizations for how a Don’t-Fuck-Before-Marriage Summer Camp might benefit poor families, states would have to
provide concrete evidence, including social science research or real-world examples, showing that they are using their TANF spending in ways that truly help families in need.
And the best way to do that, the government writes in its announcement of the proposed rule, is to do what TANF was originally set up for: giving cash assistance to needy families, because it works, even if you’re sure they’ll just blow it on booze, drugs, and My Little Pony collectibles. That’s just wrong, you see:
[We] remind states that there is a large body of research that shows that cash assistance is a critically important tool for reducing family and child poverty.[2] Studies have found that when families receive TANF and are more financially secure, they are less likely to be involved in the child welfare system.[3]
When this new rule goes into effect, states will still have some flexibility if they want to use TANF grants for something other than direct cash assistance. But they’ll need to show that poor families really are benefitting, or they’ll be penalized.
And if states want to build sportsball facilities, they’ll need to have a bake sale or something.
[ProPublica / Federal Register / ProPublica]
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