Last Updated: 09/14/2023
Every year HHS publishes state-by-state work participation data. The data for 2021 can be found at this link: Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients, Fiscal Year 2021 | The Administration for Children and Families (hhs.gov). You can find the data for subsequent years by going to the link for Data and Reports and scrolling down to the section called “Work Participation Rate Data:” State TANF Data and Reports | The Administration for Children and Families (hhs.gov).
Here is a quick summary to the data in the report:
Table 1A provides data on the calculated rate (i.e., the work rate the state achieved), the adjusted standard (i.e., the rate the state is required to achieve after the caseload reduction credit is applied, also referred to as the “target rate”), and whether or not the state met the rate. The data is provided for the both the all-family and the two-parent rates.
Table 1B provides the rate the state achieved for all cases and for TANF and SSP cases. The SSP cases usually is the rate achieved for working SNAP recipients who receive monthly cash benefits paid with state funds that are not co-mingled with federal or state MOE funds. You can find more information on SSP cases at his link: https://www.incomesecuritycbpp.org/separate-state-programs/.
Table 1C provides information on how the rate for all families and two-parent families has changes since the previous year.
Table 2 provides information on the amount of the state’s caseload reduction credit.
Tables 3A and 3B provide information on which families are included in the denominator of the work participation rate calculation. This table shows the total number of families who are deemed work eligible as well as those who are excluded from the denominator. States have the option to exclude families with a child under the age of 12 months (once in a lifetime), families in the first three months of a sanction and families participating in a Tribal work program.
Tables 4A and 4B are the tables that we use most often. Table 4A shows how many families are counted as meeting the rate in each of the various work activities. Table 4B translates that data into percentages. A family meeting the rate may be counted in more than one category if they are coming activities to meet the rate. Thus, the numbers will most often add up to more than 100 percent. This data is useful for answering a number of important questions including: (1) What share of families meet the work rate through employment; (2) Is the state placing an unusually high share of recipients in unpaid work activities? (3) How does the state fare in placing recipients in vocational education activities? (4) Does the state count few recipients in job search yet spend a lot of staff resources tracking down those hours? The percentages are most useful, especially for seeing how your state compares to other states. The numbers are useful to get a sense of scale. (This data is what we have used to convince some states to reduce the reporting burden on staff and recipients by defining “work” more narrowly and only reporting on a subset of the activities. See the information at this link for more on this topic: https://www.incomesecuritycbpp.org/reducing-administrative-burden-through-simplified-work-verification-procedures/.)
Tables 5A and 5B provide the same information as 4A and 4B for two-parent families.
The remainder of the tables in this document provide more detail on work activities, but we rarely use that information. Some tables of note include Tables 8A and 8B which provided information on participants with some hours of participation, but do not count as meeting the rate because the hours are below the 20 or 20 hour requirement. Table 9 provides the number of families who have been granted a Domestic Violence Exemption. (Those numbers are shockingly low.)