Introduction
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and giving states flexibility to create new cash assistance programs for families with children. While the federal legislation establishes a variety of minimum requirements in some areas, there is considerable flexibility for states to exceed these minimum requirements and a number of areas are open to state discretion.
This paper reviews some of the major decisions that states have made regarding the design of cash assistance programs under TANF, based on information available as of October 1997. This time period is appropriate because by October 1997 all state TANF plans had been approved and most states had enacted legislation in response to the new TANF block grant. Not all aspects of TANF programs are included in this review, however. State decisions concerning immunization requirements, treatment of interstate migrants, and teen parent school attendance requirements are among those not included in this paper. We focus on some of the major decisions regarding program eligibility and benefits, time limits, and work requirements.