Welfare Reform: TANF Activities to Reduce Nonmarital Pregnancy

Publication Date: December 2001

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Social conditions

Type:

Abstract:

The 1996 welfare reform law created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to replace the previous cash assistance program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). TANF gives states fixed federal block grants through FY2002, providing funds for a range of activities related to families with children. The legislation specifically addresses nonmarital pregnancy, establishing the following as an explicit TANF goal: "to prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies."

The states may choose to use their block grant funds "in any manner reasonably calculated" to promote the goals of TANF. However, there are some constraints on the use of federal funds that are provided as cash assistance. For example, states may not use federal TANF funds to provide cash assistance to unwed mothers under age 18 without a high school diploma (or equivalent) unless they attend school (or equivalent educational or training program) once their youngest child is 12 weeks old. In addition, states may not use federal TANF funds to assist unwed mothers under age 18 (and their children) unless they live in the home of an adult relative or in another adult-supervised arrangement. Although there is no explicit provision, TANF also allows states to apply family caps, and to deny or reduce benefits for a new baby in a family already receiving cash welfare.

In addition to providing cash welfare, states may use their TANF grants for other services and activities that support the program's overall goals. Given the flexibility of the TANF block grant, state activities to reduce nonmarital pregnancy are notably diverse. However, states spend relatively little of their TANF grants on these activities or services. In FY2000, pregnancy prevention efforts made up 0.8% of federal TANF spending and 0.4% of total spending (including expenditures made with state funds).

TANF directs states to set numerical goals for reducing nonmarital pregnancy in FY1996 through FY2005, which most states have done. However, because of the various ways that states report these goals, and the different statistics used by the states (e.g., some establish goals for reducing childbirth, others establish goals for reducing pregnancy; some states express their goals in terms of incidence rates, while others use percentage of total births, etc.), it is difficult to compare these numerical goals across states.

The 1996 welfare reform law authorizes a performance bonus as an incentive for states to decrease their "illegitimacy ratio," defined in the law as the number of children born out-of-wedlock divided by the total number of children born in that state (over a given 2-year period). To qualify for a bonus payment, states also must have abortion rates that are lower than their 1995 base-year levels. For each of FY1999FY2002, $100 million was appropriated for this bonus. HHS has awarded three rounds of bonus payments, to five states in FY1999 and FY2000 ($20 million each) and to three states in FY2001 ($25 million each).