Order Code RS22369
January 27, 2006
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
TANF, Child Care, Marriage Promotion, and
Responsible Fatherhood Provisions in the
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (S. 1932)
Gene Falk
Specialist in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division
Summary
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA, S. 1932) includes a scaled-back version
of welfare reauthorization. Enactment of the DRA would end the four-year saga of
welfare reauthorization legislation. The DRA would extend funding at current levels
for basic state grants under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block
grant through Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, and has provisions that require states to either
raise participation in work activities among families receiving cash welfare from TANF
or further reduce the cash assistance rolls. The DRA also would extend Child Care and
Development Fund (CCDF) mandatory funding through FY2010, increasing mandatory
child care funding by $200 million per year from current levels (a total increase of $1
billion over five years). The DRA would further establish $100 million per year in
TANF research and technical assistance funds for “healthy marriage promotion”
initiatives and $50 million per year for “responsible fatherhood initiatives.” This report
will be updated.
TANF Funding and Program Authority
The DRA would continue the TANF block grant created in the 1996 welfare reform
law through FY2010. In general, TANF funding levels, rules for use of funds, and
program requirements would continue unchanged through FY2010. With respect to
funding, there are some exceptions:
! Supplemental grants paid to 17 states that have met criteria of low
historic grants per poor person or high rates of population growth would
be continued at current levels only through FY2008.
! Both TANF bonuses would be repealed. The two repealed bonuses are
(1) The High Performance Bonus of $200 million per year, paid to states
on the basis of their rankings on various measures of program goals; and
(2) a bonus of up to $100 million per year, paid to the five states that had
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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the greatest reductions in the percentage of births born out-of-wedlock
with a decline in abortion rates.
! New project and demonstration grants would be made by the Department
of Health and Human Services for “healthy marriage initiatives” ($100
million per year) and “responsible fatherhood initiatives” ($50 million
per year). These grants are discussed later in this report.
TANF Work Participation Requirements
The DRA would make some significant changes to TANF work participation. These
changes would require states to engage more of their caseloads in activities and/or reduce
cash assistance caseloads from FY2005 levels. They further restrict states from increasing
their participation rates by moving nonparticipating families out of TANF and into
separate state programs or otherwise changing their program definitions and operations
in ways that might be seen as contravening the work standards.
The Caseload Reduction Credit. TANF sets minimum work participation
standards that a state must meet. The standards are performance measures computed in
the aggregate for each state, which require that a specified percentage of families with an
adult or minor head of household receiving assistance be considered engaged in specified
activities for a minimum number of hours. Under current law, a state must meet two
standards each year: 50% of all families with an adult recipient or minor head-of-
household recipient must have a work participant; and (2) 90% of two-parent families
must meet participation rules. However, the law also includes a caseload reduction credit,
which provides that the standards are reduced one percentage point for each 1% decline
in the assistance caseload that has occurred since FY1995.
States are not given credit for caseload declines that resulted from eligibility changes
that have occurred since FY1995, the year before enactment of the federal welfare reform
law (P.L. 104-193). Caseload reduction resulting from any eligibility restrictions imposed
within the TANF program — including policies such as time limits and full-family
sanctions imposed since FY1995 — are not counted (disregarded) when determining a
state’s caseload reduction credit.
After the federal and state welfare reforms of the mid-1990s, many states had large
declines in their cash assistance caseloads. From FY1995 through FY2004, the national
cash assistance caseload declined by 56%. Though the rate of caseload decline varied
among the states, most states received fairly substantial caseload reduction credits which
reduced their effective (after-credit) TANF work participation standards well below 50%.
In FY2004, caseload reduction credits were large enough to reduce to 0% the effective
(after-credit) work participation standard for 19 states.
The DRA would revise the caseload reduction credit so that states will receive credit
only for future caseload reductions. Effective in FY2007, states would only receive credit
for caseload reductions that occur from FY2005 forward. The FY2007 credit would be
based on caseload declines (if any) that occur from FY2005 to FY2006; the FY2008
credit would be based on caseload declines that occur from FY2005 to FY2007; the
FY2009 credit would be based on caseload declines that occur from FY2005 to FY2008,
and so on. As under current law, states would not be given credit for caseload declines

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that occur because of eligibility changes that occurred from the base year for measuring
caseload changes; the base year would become FY2005 under the DRA.
Separate State Programs. The TANF program was created in 1996 by
consolidating three programs that provided matching grants to states, with the federal
government funding approximately 55% of expenditures made in these predecessor
programs. TANF requires states to maintain some of its fiscal effort in providing benefits
and services to low-income needy families. States were required to continue to spend,
from their own funds, at least 75% of what they had spent in FY1994. The state spending
need not be in the TANF program, but must be for needy families with children and for
the same types of activities allowed under state TANF programs. Under current law, most
TANF requirements (e.g., the time limit on benefit receipt) do not apply to families
receiving assistance under these separate state programs (SSPs), and families receiving
assistance under SSPs are not considered in either the numerator or denominator of the
TANF work participation rate calculation. The DRA would require that states count
families in SSPs in determining their work participation rates.
HHS Regulations. Though federal law establishes TANF participation standards,
minimum hours requirements, and a list of 12 activities that count toward meeting the
standards, much of the detail in operating and enforcing these standards is left to the
states. For example, current HHS regulations do not go further than federal law in
defining TANF work activities, repeating in regulations the list of allowable activities and
permitting states to flesh out what each of those activities means in practice. In
promulgating regulations implementing TANF, HHS (under the Clinton Administration)
said it left defining activities to the states because “We believe States will use the
flexibility of the statute to formulate a variety of reasonable interpretations leading to
greater innovation, experimentation, and success in helping families become self-
sufficient quickly.”1 HHS also instructs states to report a recipient’s actual hours of
participation in activities, not scheduled hours of activities. However, it has not further
specified how states are to verify actual hours of participation. This lack of uniform
definitions and controls in verifying participation led the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) to find in a 2005 report that “there is no standard basis for interpreting
states’ [work participation] rates, and the rates cannot effectively be used to assess and
compare states’ performance.”2
The DRA would require HHS to issue regulations by June 30, 2006, to “ensure
consistent measurement of work participation rates” by
! further defining TANF work activities beyond the current statutory list,
fleshing out what types of activities can be counted toward the standards;
! requiring uniform methods for reporting hours of work; and
! determining the circumstances in which parents must be included in the
family (and thus the family included in the work participation rate
calculation).
1 See Vol 62 Federal Register, No 224, p. 62137. November 20, 1997.
2 United States Governmental Accountability Office. GAO-05-821. Welfare Reform: HHS
Should Exercise Oversight to Help Ensure TANF Work Participation is Measured Consistently
Across States. August 2005.

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Mandatory Child Care Funding
Since FY2002, mandatory child care funding for the Child Care and Development
Block Grant has been set at $2.717 billion per year. About $1.2 billion of these funds is
a basic guaranteed child care block grant to the states, with the remaining $1.5 billion
requiring state matching funds. The DRA would increase mandatory child care funding
to $2.917 billion per year for FY2006 through FY2010.3 This is an increase from current
levels of $200 million per year or $1 billion over five years.
Healthy Marriage Promotion
and Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives
The DRA would establish new categorical grants within TANF for healthy marriage
promotion and responsible fatherhood initiatives. TANF law allows states to use block
grant and Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds for activities to further any TANF purpose,
including promotion of the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. However,
state expenditures in this category have generally been small, totaling $212 million (less
than 1% of all TANF and MOE expenditures) in FY2004.
Healthy Marriage Promotion. The healthy marriage promotion initiative would
be funded at approximately $100 million per year,4 to be spent through (1) grants awarded
by the Secretary of HHS to support research and demonstration projects by public or
private entities; and (2) technical assistance provided to states, Indian tribes and tribal
organizations, and other entities. The activities supported by the healthy marriage
promotion initiatives are as follows:
! programs to promote marriage to the general population, such as public
advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and education in high
schools on the value of marriage;
! education on “social skills “ ( e.g. marriage education, marriage skills,
conflict resolution, and relationship skills) for engaged couples, those
interested in marriage, or married couples; and
! programs that reduce the financial disincentive to marry, if combined
with educational or other marriage promotion activities.
The DRA would require applicants for marriage promotion grants to ensure that
participation in such activities is voluntary and that domestic violence concerns be
addressed, including through consultation with experts on domestic violence.
3 The DRA would not reauthorize or change authorized discretionary funding levels under the
Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), nor would it change CCDBG rules. See
CRS Report RL32817, Child Care Issues in the 109th Congress, by Melinda Gish.
4 The DRA would provide an appropriation of $150 million for three sets of activities. Of this
appropriation, up to $2 million per year is set aside to test the effectiveness of tribal governments
and consortia in coordinating child welfare services for abused and neglected children.
Additionally, up to $50 million per year is set aside for responsible fatherhood initiatives. If the
full amount of these set-asides were used for these purposes, $98 million per year would be left
for healthy marriage promotion activities.

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Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives. Additionally, the DRA would make
available up to $50 million per year for responsible fatherhood initiatives. These
initiatives would be funded through competitive grants made by HHS to states, territories,
Indian tribes and tribal organizations, and public and nonprofit community organizations
(including religious organizations). Responsible fatherhood initiatives are defined as
including activities to promote marriage; teach parenting skills through counseling,
mentoring, mediation, and dissemination of information; support employment and job
training services, and develop and promote media campaigns and a national clearinghouse
focused on responsible fatherhood. (See CRS Report RL31025 for more on these
initiatives.)
Brief Comparison of the DRA with Other
Welfare Reauthorization Proposals in the 109th Congress
Enactment of the DRA would end the four-year saga of welfare reauthorization
legislation. Since September 30, 2002, when the original funding authority for TANF
expired, the block grant had been continued through twelve “temporary extension” bills.
However, DRA’s welfare and related provisions are scaled back from welfare
reauthorization proposals offered earlier in 2005, in H.R. 240 (a bill introduced by the
House Republican leadership) or in S. 667, (a bill reported from the Senate Finance
Committee). Table 1 provides a brief comparison of the major provisions of the earlier
welfare reauthorization bills with the DRA.
Table 1. Comparison of the DRA with H.R. 240 and S. 667
Provision
H.R. 240 (as
S. 667 (as reported by
Deficit Reduction Act
introduced)
the Senate Finance
of 2005 (conference
Committee
agreement)
TANF
Extend basic TANF
Same as H.R. 240.
Same as H.R. 240 and S.
funding
funding at current levels
667.
($16.5 billion per year)
through FY2010.
Extend supplemental
Same as H.R. 240.
Extend supplemental
grants at current levels
grants at current levels
($319 million per year)
through FY2008.
through FY2009.
TANF
Eliminate bonus for
Same as H.R. 240.
Same as H.R. 240 and S.
bonuses
reductions in out-of-
667.
wedlock birth with
reduced abortion rates.
Reduce High
Same as H.R. 240.
Eliminate High
Performance Bonus from
Performance Bonus.
$200 million to $100
million per year, focus
award on achieving
employment outcomes.
Mandatory
Increase funding by $1
Increase funding by $6
Same as H.R. 240.
child care
billion over five years
billion over five years.
funding
(FY2006 through
FY2010).

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Provision
H.R. 240 (as
S. 667 (as reported by
Deficit Reduction Act
introduced)
the Senate Finance
of 2005 (conference
Committee
agreement)
Work
Raise standards from
Same as H.R. 240.
Retain current law
Participation
current 50% of the
standard at 50% of the
Standards.
caseload to 70%.
caseload and 90% of the
Eliminate separate
two-parent caseload.
standard for two-parent
families of 90% of the
caseload.
Credits
Revise caseload
Replace caseload
Revise caseload
reduction credit,
reduction credit with an
reduction credit,
ultimately to give credit
employment credit.
beginning in FY2007 to
only for future caseload
give credit only for
reduction.
future caseload
reduction.
Hours
Establish a 40-hour
Raise hours requirements
Retain current law hours
standard workweek for
to 24 hours per week for
requirements: 20 hours
all families.
single parents caring for
per week for single
pre-school children, 34
parents caring for pre-
hours per week for other
school children, 30 hours
single parent families,
per week for other single
higher hours for two-
parent families, higher
parent families.
for two-parent families.
Activities
Revise activities. In
Expand countable
Retain current law
most months at least 24
activities to allow
countable activities.
hours per week must be
participation in post-
spent either working or
secondary education and,
in workfare programs.
for up to six months in a
States define activities
24-month period, other
for three months in a 24-
education and activities
month period.
to remove work barriers.
Healthy
Establish a $100 million
Same as H.R. 240,
Provide approximately
Marriage
per year matching grant
except require that
$100 million per year for
Promotion
for marriage promotion
marriage promotion
marriage promotion
activities and a second
activities be voluntary
activities. Require that
$100 million fund for
and that grantees
marriage promotion
demonstrations, research
consider domestic
activities be voluntary
and technical assistance.
violence issues in their
and that grantees
programs.
consider domestic
violence issues in their
programs.
Responsible
Authorize $20 million in
Provide $50 million in
Provide up to $50
Fatherhood
discretionary funds for
mandatory funds and
million in mandatory
Initiatives
responsible fatherhood
authorize $26 million in
funding for responsible
grants.
discretionary funds for
fatherhood initiatives.
responsible fatherhood
grants.
Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS).

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