What about the Children? Indicators from Census Supplementary Surveys Related to PRWORA and TANF Evaluation Measures: 2000-2001

Jane L. Dye, U.S. Census Bureau
Robin T. Levine, U.S. Census Bureau

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 was designed to create a dramatic over haul of the nation’s public welfare system. Central to the legislation is the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The TANF program seeks to undermine long term dependence of program recipients by: mandating labor force participation; preventing and reducing out-of-wedlock births; and by promoting the formation of stable, two-parent families. As a block grant program, TANF seeks further to enhance program accountability by states via the use of financial penalties and rewards for high performance. Family participation in the Food Stamp Program and the number of married-couple families with children are among the TANF evaluation measures that will be used to assess state performance and accountability. Other child and family related topics addressed by PRWORA which state human service agencies and advocates are monitoring include: parental employment and training, child support, relative and kinship care, teens at risk due to childbearing and idleness, and non-citizen children in poverty who may not be eligible for some assistance programs. The proposed poster seeks to illustrate state differences in annual percent changes across select child and family characteristics that influence many of PRWORA and TANF state performance evaluation measures. Specifically, the proposed poster will highlight findings from an analysis of state data obtained from the Census 2000 Supplemental Survey (C2SS) and the 2001 Supplemental Survey (SS01) on the percentage point change in the number of children in married-couple families. Based on this survey data (which includes standard errors), 10 states will be awarded the TANF performance bonus for marital stability. Ranked state data will be featured with confidence intervals and discussion of significant differences. The C2SS and SS01 are Decennial Census programs designed to demonstrate the feasibility of collecting Census long-form type information at the same time as, but separate from, Census 2000. The American Community Survey (ACS) is a new approach for collecting accurate, timely information needed for critical government functions. This new approach provides accurate, up-to-date profiles of America's communities every year. The ACS, C2SS and SS01 data were collected using an identical questionnaire and methodology. The data collected from these surveys contain information regarding demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics from a national sample of 700,000 households in 1,203 counties. The proposed poster will highlight annual percentage point changes in family and child characteristics related to topics included in the PRWORA legislation. The proposed poster will also highlight 2001 children in selected states affected by topics such as marriage and family, work, education and training, poverty, income, and program participation. Lastly, the poster will highlight non-marital fertility, teen births and in the number of adolescents and young adults who are neither employed nor attending school - putting them at risk of future welfare dependence. Children who are non-citizens and who are living in poverty will also be included among poster highlights.