This National Association of Counties (NACo) report discusses counties’ role in funding and administering the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program. The report also identifies counties’ challenges, including restraints by states…

Due to its accountability and efficiency, Performance-Based Contracting has been identified as a topic of interest among TANF programs around the nation. In response to TANF programs' desire for information and strategies for creating sustainable…

In accordance with federal interests, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation funded a report on the challenges of and potential solutions for measuring TANF employment outcomes. Creating national standards would be a significant challenge…

This brief by the Urban Institute looks at how economic trends and the labor market have changed since the 1970s, when both the labor market and social safety supports were stronger. Because of such changes like fewer work benefits, stagnant wages,…

Recent causal research shows that people’s earnings are directly linked to the neighborhoods where they grew up, with impoverished and underserved communities at the bottom end of the earning scale. Johns Hopkins’ 21st Century Cities Initiative…

More than 36 million U.S. adults cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third grade level. No state is immune to low literacy, and in Washington State, one in six adults lacks basic skills for acquiring a livable wage job. While Seattle is one…

This toolkit by National Conference of State Legislatures focuses on new approaches and strategies to help families disrupt the cycle of poverty. The toolkit outlines and describes the fundamentals of two-generation approaches to address poverty…

This Department of Homeland Security guide explains a seven-step process for effectively engaging faith-based and community organizations developed, refined, and validated by the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives in collaboration with…

In this Issue Brief, findings from an intervention of an outreach strategy were applied to Colorado’s version of TANF, Colorado Works, that aimed to increase participant engagement rates. Parents were not following through on upfront activities like…

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has recently released a report which examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the…