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Georgia's Increased TANF Work Participation Rate Is Driven By Sharp Caseload Decline: Available Data Raise Questions About Whether Georgia Should Be Labeled As A Model For The Nation

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Publication Date: March 2007

Publisher: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Liz Schott

Research Area: Labor; Social conditions

Keywords: Economic projections; Unemployment rate; Income diversity; Economic inequality

Type: Report

Coverage: Georgia

Abstract:

Georgia’s success at increasing its TANF work participation rate has been touted as a welfare reform model for other states as they seek ways to meet the new work participation requirements associated with the Deficit Reduction Act changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. An examination of available data on Georgia’s TANF program and of the state’s policies and procedures, however, raises serious questions about whether the state has achieved its higher participation rate in recent years by doing a better job to help parents move from welfare to work or by restricting poor families' access to assistance. Under federal law, states must meet a specified “work participation rate” in its TANF assistance programs. The work participation rate is simply the ratio of the number of adult TANF recipients who are working or in specified work-related activities to the number of families with adults receiving cash assistance through TANF-related programs. Georgia’s work participation rate has increased dramatically in recent years – from 11 percent in 2003 to over 65 percent in 2006. But the increased work participation rate is primarily a factor of fewer families receiving assistance. In fact, despite the dramatic increase in the rate of work participation, there were fewer adult TANF recipients participating in work or work-related activities in May of 2006 than there were in an average month in 2003. It is the significant decline in the TANF adult caseload — more than 80 percent since January 2004 — that has produced the state's high work participation rate.